QUESTIONS oFtHe HOUR 



A POLITICAL SPEECH 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE TIPPECANOE CLUB 
AT FORT WAYNE, INDIANA, 
C^^A UGUST 9, 1902 



By ROBERT S. TAYLOR 



CONTENTS 

The Philippine Policy Page 4 

Trusts « j2 

Tariff Changes « 25 

Cuban Reciprocity « 28 

The Labor Question. « ,1 



Copies Sent Free on Application to E. M. Hulse, 
Fort WaYxVe, Indiana 



Questions of the Hour. 



Wbj' should auybody vote for a dem- 
ocratic candidate for Congress this 
year? 

The people have decided against that 
party X)n the money question, and Con- 
gress has put the decision on the stat- 
ute book. 

The I'resident's Fourth of July proc- 
lamation put "Imperialism" to sleep 
with "Sixteen-to-one;" civil govern- 
ment exists in the Philippine Islands 
by act of Congress. There is no more 
Iiuperialism in Luzon than there is in 
Indiana. 

The census, with its marvelous show- 
ing of the growth of our manufactur- 
ing industries, has put the finishing 
touch of demonstration to the argu- 
ments which long ago convinced the 
American people of the wisdom of the 
policy of protection. 

The democratic party prates about 
trusts and monopolies but proposes no 
practicable cure for them and fights ev- 
ery measure to that end proposed by 
the republicans. 

Is there anything more? The path- 
finders of the democratic party have 
been hunting it with a candle for 
months^something to make a fight on, 
and have not found it. 

A party that has been uniformly 
wrong on every great issue for forty 
jears, and has no new issue to pro- 
pose, can have nothing to offer the 
country worth considering. A carpeu- 
tei-, old enough to be gray headed, who 



never built a house that would stand 
alone, is not worth hiring at any price. 
The country is in a state of unparal- 
leled prosperity. This condition is not 
to be attributed unreasonabl© to the 
wise laws enacted by the republican 
party; neither is the fact that it has 
followed those laws a mere coinci- 
dence. Solid credit and general coufi 
dence based on sound money have 
something to do with business as well 
as seasonable i-ains; and protection is 
sunshine to industry. 

The war against Spain brought in its 
train a number of novel and ditticult 
quesitions. But they have been so far 
closed that nothing remains for present 
action about which there is room for 
substantial controversy. There are 
many things in governmental affairs 
which demand, in the public interest, 
the freest discussion in advance, or 
while in progress, but wffich, when 
done, cannot be undone, and are, there- 
fore, no longer profitable subjects of 
debate. The admission of Texas into 
the Union was once a matter of mueii 
difference of opinion and violent con- 
troversy, but would be very unprofita- 
ble to talk about now. We cannot 
blot out the fact of Dewey's victory 
at Manila Bay, nor repeal the Treaty 
of Paris, nor restore the status in quo 
in the Philippine Islands. We have on 
our hands there a tremendous problem 
of administration; but if the demo- 
cratic party were iu power it would 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



handle it just as it is being liandled by 
tlie republicans, to the extent of its 
ability. There is. nothing in that de- 
partment of public affairs to justify a 
man in voting the democratic ticket. 

Of course, the great majority of i)ieu 
vote the oltl ticket, whether democrat- 
ic or republican, year after year. It 
is perhaps just as well that they do. 
That habit of the mass of voters im- 
parts a certain steadiness to the course 
of affairs, and may save us some vio- 
lent crises which would occur if every 
voter made up his mind afresh on the 
whole merits of the ease at every elec- 
tion. 

But there is a large and growing 
body of voters who do, to a certain ex- 
tent, make up their minds afresh at 
evei"y election in view of the whole sit- 
uation of affairs in the country as they 
see it, and then vote accordingly. These 
men are the arbiters'ljetween parties. 
They are the independent voters, so 
much in evidence in recent elections. 
I'hey have not been voting the demo- 
cratic ticket for eight years. There is 
no more reason why they should do it 
now. As for the steady-going republi- 
can, who habitually votes his party 
ticket, he will vote it this year with 
more sense of pride and satisfacciou 
than ever before. 

Why need I say more? Upon any 
question of choice between parties 
there is absolutely nothing to be said 
in favor of the democratic party. For 
the ordinary ijurposes of a campaign 
speech I might stop right now. 

But there are questions before the 
country of the greatest importance and 
the greatest dithculty; and, I may add, 
the greatest urgency. The republican 
party is in power. It is responsible 
for the wise administration of the gov- 
ernment. It must meet these ques- 
tions. We find ourselves, therefore, in 
this curious situation. The political 
problems which are demanding the at- 
tention of those who think for the pub- 
lic are not so much things at issue be- 
tween parties, as subjects for consid- 
eration within the republican party. 
What shall we do about the Philippine 



Islands, the Trusts, the Tariff, Cuban 
reciprocity and the Labor problem? 
These are the vital questions of the 
hour. The only profitable use which 
I know how to make of my time and 
yours is to talk about them— as a citi- 
zen to his fellow citizens, in a broad 
sense, but as a republican to his fellow 
republicans in a particular sense. 

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 

When so great and good a man and 
republican as Senator Hoar feels called 
on to make such a speech as he made 
in the United States Senate on the 
22nd day of last May, in opposition to 
the bill creating a civil government in 
the Philippine Islands, I feel called 
upon to re-examine my views on the 
subject to see whether I may not by 
possibility be all wrong in my no- 
tions. I want to feel tliat I am right 
and my party is right on that ques- 
tion, or else find out where we are 
wrong, and put myself in the right, at 
least. 

As time goes by I find myself dis- 
posed to take a larger and larger vi<nv 
of the Philippine question. We, who 
have been born and reai'ed in the 
United States, have been greatly in- 
fluenced by two circumstances. First, 
we have not only cherished our Dec- 
laration of Independence as though it 
were an inspired document, but we 
have given to its sweeping language an 
eqiially sweeping application in our 
minds. We have taken it to mean that 
the inalienable birthright of every hu- 
man being extends not only to pergonal 
liberty under the protection and re- 
straint of the law, but to political lib- 
erty as well. We have assumed it to 
l)e the doctrine of that declaration, and 
therefore a truth not to be doubted, 
that all men are entitled to the same 
political rights and franchises which 
the American colonists claimed for 
themselves, and that any denial or 
abridgement of those rights is neces- 
sarily and always a wrong. 



QUESTIONS OP THE HOUR 



In the second place, we have carried 
along all the time a remnant of that 
animosity toward the government of 
Great Britain which survived our Rev- 
olutionary War. We have been un- 
sparing critics of England, and above 
all, of the extension of her empire by 
force of arms over distant laijds and 
weak peoples. The word "greed" has 
had in our vocabulary a sort of spe- 
cial reservation for English character 
sketching. 

And so when we found ourselves ac- 
cepting from Spain a cession of the 
Philippine Islands without reference to 
the wishes of their inhabitants, and 
treating' as rebels men who were fight- 
ing for national independence, we 
seemed to have dropped all at once to 
the moral level of Great Britain. Where 
is the truth? Are we wrong now— hor- 
ribly wrong— trampling down the sac- 
red rights of eight million people by 
forcing upon them* a sovereignty to 
which they did not consent; or have 
we been wrong for a hundred years in 
the theoretical doctrines of the rights 
of man which we have been proclaim- 
ing? 

We have never recognized those 
rights in practice. We exterminated 
the Indians. We enslaved the negro. 
The Supreme Court decided that even 
when free he had no rights in the land 
of his birth. We emancipated him 
from slavery and conferred upon him 
all the political rights belonging to free- 
men, only to suffer them to be taken 
away from him by force and fraud. 
We thought for a time that we had re- 
versed the Dred Scott decision on the 
battle field; but we were mistaken. It 
is still true that the black man "has no 
rights which a white man is bound to 
respect." The indifference with which 
we regard the disfranchisement of the 
negro in the South is due to the fact 
that he has disappointed our expecta- 
tions. The superior minority of the 
race — those who reside in the North, 
and a relatively small part of those who 
reside in the South, are equal to the 
duties of citizenship and sovereignty 



belonging to an American elector. But 
that is not true of the body of those 
who live in the South. Hence we see 
them deprived of their rights under the 
law with no serious protest. What is 
this but an abandonment of the doctrine 
of the political equality of all men? 

So, too, of the Chinaman. We forbid 
him to land on our shore, or breathe our 
air. His pursuit of happiness niust not 
take the direction of this country if he 
wants to retain his liberty. 

We made war on Mexico for no very 
good cause, , and took by conquest a 
large slice of her territory, which we 
made part of our own domain without 
consulting the wishes of its inhabitants. 
They offered no armed resistance to 
this transfer of their citizenship, but if 
they had we would have treated them 
as rebels and subdued them l:>y force, 
no doubt. 

We bought Louisiana, Florida and 
Alaska, and subjected their inhabitants 
to our jm-isdictiou with like indifference 
to their wishes. 

This has been ovu- practical construc- 
tion of the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. Whether right or wrong it acquits 
us of inconsistency in our dealings with 
the people of the Philippine Islands. 
There are more people there than there 
were in Louisiana, Florida, California, 
or Alaska; but such a question does not 
depend on the number of persons affect- 
ed. If it was and is our duty to consult 
and defer to the wishes of the millions 
of people in the Philippine Islands in 
reference to our proceedings there, ;t 
was equally our duty toward the hun- 
dreds of thousands of people in the 
other places which I have named. 

I admit, however, that these prece- 
dents ought not to be taken as settling 
the question. An inquiry as to human 
rights is always in order, and in it all 
precedents are open to re-examination. 

EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT. 

The progress of the human race has 
been along two widely different lines. 
In one of them it has been a process 
of evolution in the Darv^inian sense, 
as cruel and pitiless ns that which goes 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



ou among the beasts of the forest; iu 
the other it has been a benign process 
of development. Man, the animal, has 
fought his way roiiufl the world; tlie 
stronger races subduing, enslaving, ex- 
terminating the weaker ones. Tlie 
man, homo— the nobler man, though 
often the same man, has utilize! the 
advantages gained by victory and con- 
quest to cultivate industry, letters, sci- 
ence, art and religion. Easter lilies 
bloom in soil fertilized l)y the blood of 
massacred women and children. 

THE RISE AND SPREAD OK JCIVILIZATION. 

Civilization has not sprung up spon- 
taneously over the world. It is a plant 
of rare origin. Its initial appearance 
has been limited in the world's his- 
tory to a few races and places. In some 
favoring locality a strong race appears 
having self-contained powers of 
growth. It outstrips its neighbors and 
outgrows its home territory; an I by 
commerce, colonization and conquests 
it carries its dominion and its institu- 
tions to other lands. The greatest ex- 
amples in history of such races are 
the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons. We 
can hardly imagine what the world 
would have been if these nations had 
not existed. Their conquests were at- 
tended by many wrongs and cruelties. 
But the benefits to mankind which 
have followed them, and will continue 
to follow them, through all the future 
life of the race of men, outweigh these, 
thousanc's to one. 

There are some races of men which 
appear to be incapable of civilization. 
When brought into contact with its 
conditions they melt away, as our 
North American Indians did. Others, 
like the New Zealanders, can have a 
degree of civilization pounded into 
them which will contribute to their 
happiness and make them useful mem- 
bers of the world's societj'. Otliers 
only want a little help— just to be led 
by the hand. Of such are the Hindus, 
the Chinese, and the Central American 
peoples. None of them are or were 



barl)ariaiis. They are inheritors of 
ancient and decayed civilizations. But 
tliey have not the modern impulse, uor 
the power to awaken it ■v^athin them- 
selves. 

We are bound to lielieve that the 
highest good of mankind is to be found 
in the universal dissemination of the 
modern civilization — tlie houses, the 
clotlies, the education, the books, the 
arts, the machines, the manufacture, 
the commerce, which have lifted up 
life in Europe and America to the 
highest plane ever reachetl by man. It 
is also true that nothing can be more 
certain than that there are millions of 
people in tropical and oriental coun- 
tries who cannot attain that civiliza- 
tion by unaided efforts of their own, 
but to whom it must be taken with a 
greater or less degree of compulsion. 
There is not to be any sudden change 
in human nature. The experience of 
five hundred years is not to be re- 
versed. The world will achieve its pro- 
gress in the years to come as it has in 
the past— through more or less of tra- 
vail and pain. 

JAVA AND MADAGASCAR. 

Let me illustrate my thought. Java 
and Madagascar are two great tropical 
islands lying in the same quarter of 
the globe. Java has been under the 
dominion of the government of Holland 
for about 300 y,pars. Madagascar has 
never been under the dominion of any 
foreign power until the French took 
possession some five or six years ago. 
Java has an area of nearly 50,000 
square miles; or about one and a half 
times that of Indiana. It has a popu- 
lation of 25,000,000, being ten times 
that of Indiana, or over 500 to the 
square mile. About one in 500 of the 
population are Europeans. It is a per- 
fect hive of industry. Its productions 
are among the choicest and best things 
which old mother Earth yields to man. 
Last year it produced ninety million 
pounds of coffee, and twelve million 
pounds of tea, with seven hundred 



U( J<>1 I ( »>:!!> Ul THK H<»l l; 



ilioiisaud ions uH sugar to sweeten 
them with. Just thiuk of the break- 
fast tables and the supper tables made 
fragrant with that coft'ee and tea, and 
the possibilities of pies and cakes from 
that sugar, and then tell me where in 
the world the acres are made to do 
more service to mankind than in the 
island of Java. 

But that is not all. That island pro- 
duced in 1899 (I have not the figures 
for 1900 and 1901) forty-eight million 
pounds of tobacco; eight hundred 
thousand pounds of cinchona^ or Pe- 
ruvian bark, Avliich is the material 
from which quinine is made, and 
enough, one Avould think, to cure the 
ague for all mankind; and a million 
seven hundred thousand pounds of in- 
digo. 

All this does not include the principal 
crop, which is rice, the universal food 
of the natives, of which they raise all 
of their own supply, besides a large 
surplus for export, the most of Avhich 
goes to Borneo and China. The ex- 
ports of all commodities from the isl- 
and for 1899 v,-ere valued at $100,000,- 
(K)0, and the imports at .$70,000,000, 
making a total foreign trade of seven 
dollars per capita. The people of Java 
are not highly civilized, but they are 
peaceable, prosperous, contented and 
happy. 

Madagascar has an area of about 
225,000 square miles, or seven times 
that of Indiana, and a population, ac- 
cording to the latest authority, of about 
2,244,000, or nearly the same as that 
of Indiana. It is a country of incal- 
culable capabilities. Its broad low- 
lands next the shore are covered with 
interminable and unbroken forests. It 
has vast areas of fertile, elevated, well 
watered table lands, with healthful cli- 
mate, beautiful scenery, and capacity 
for great variety of productions. It 
could support a hundred million people 
as well as Java can support twenty-tive 
millions. 

Its inhabitants are not savages by 
any means. They have organized gov- 
ernments, wear clothes of their os\u 



manufactin'o, and live in settled habi- 
tations. Missionaries have been at 
work among them, and in a certain 
sense have Christianized a considerable 
number of them. But their political in- 
dependence has left them free to live 
as their heathen ancestors lived before 
them for centuries past. They have 
no <'onsciousness of the world's prog- 
ress. They have no wagon roads, much 
less railroads. They know practically 
nothing of machinery and its uses. 
They make nothing to sell and have 
no money to buy with. A few traders 
in tljo sea coast towns do a little busi- 
ness. The total exports from the coun- 
try in 1900 v,-ere only .$2,125,000, and 
they embraced no cultivated products 
of the soil except vanilla, valued at $45,- 
000, and Cape peas, valued at .$40,000. 
Not a pound of sugar, coffee, tea, to- 
bacco or spices, all of which its soil 
and climate are fitted to prodiice in 
boimdless profusion. 

Those of us who visited the World's 
Fair in Chicago will recall the Javan- 
ese colony on the Midway, with its 
([uaint bamboo houses, tidy, intelligent 
looking people, and unique orchestra. 
But there was no representation from 
Madagascar, so far as I remember. 

To my urind there is a great object 
lesson for us in this contrast between 
.lava and Madagascar. One shows 
what the ^Nlalay race can do under the 
tutelage of a civilized government; the 
other" shows what it will do when left 
to take its own v/ay. You will be sur- 
prised, I think, as I was, if you will 
look at the map, to see how near the 
Philippine Islands are to .Java. They 
are really parts of one great archipela- 
go. The natives are mostly from the 
same original stock, and the countries 
are much alike in climate, soil, and pro- 
ductions. What Holland has done m 
•Tava we can do in the Philippines in 
comparatively short time, by better 
methods and with greater advantage 
tu the. people. 

NEW ZEALAND. 

The worlJ has made great progress 
in its manner of dealing with uncivil- 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



ized races since Spain asserted sover- 
eignty over the Philippine Islands 
three hnndred years ago, and the Dutch 
East India Company subjugated Java 
not very far from the same time. Per- 
haps the best illustration of this fact 
may be found in the colonization of 
New Zealand by Great Britain. A hun- 
dred years ago those islands were a 
terror to sailors. Their cannibal sav- 
ages were more to be feared than 
storms or shipwrecks. The first mis- 
sion upon the islands was established 
in 1814. They were officially declared 
subject to Great Britain as a colony :n 
1840. The native tribes at that time 
submitted to British authority by 
treaty, although there have been fre- 
quent rebellions since. 

The area of the islands is 104,000 
square miles, being about three times 
the area of Indiana. They contain now 
a white population of thi-ee-quarters 
of a million. The native Maoris niim- 
ber about 50,000. The people are 
blessed with every adjunct of the high- 
est civilization, including woman's 
suffrage. They have 2,2.57 miles of 
railway, 7,000 miles of telegraph lines 
and 8,000 telephone stations. They 
have 300 public libraries, containing 
over 400,000 volumes. They have 54 
daily papers, GG weeklies and 26 month- 
lies. They have an advanced system 
of public schools on which the govern- 
ment spends over .$2,500,000 per an- 
num. They export over $65,000,000 of 
products per annum and import S50,- 
000,000, making a total foreign trade 
of $115,000,000 per annum, or $120 per 
capita, which is more than four times 
as much per capita as we do ourselves. 
Among the exports in 1900 were wool, 
$23,000,000; gold, $7,000,000; and frozen 
meats, $10,000,000. 

The natives have been justly and 
kindly treated. Their land titles have 
been respected and they have been put 
in the way of education and develop- 
ment. They have schools on whicli the 
government expends about $100,000 per 
annum. They have representatives of 
their own race in the Legi-slature and 



are entitled to vote for them on sub- 
stantially the same terms as the whites. 
More than this, they exercise the right 
and vote only in a little less proportion 
to their numbers than the whites. Ail 
this has been accomplished in a coun- 
try where cannibals occupied the (and 
less than a hundred years ago. 

TASMANIA. 

The New Zealailders were vicious 
enough, but the Tasmanians were more 
so. They would not be reconciled to 
the white man's presence. They fought 
until they Avere exterminated. The 
last survivor was the queen of the 
tribe, who died in 1872. Their little 
island— about three-fourths as large as 
Indiana— contains 175,000 inhabitants, 
and has schools, colleges, railroads, tel- 
egraphs, telephones, and had a foreign 
trade in 1900, exports and imports, of 
$23,000,000. A century ago the island 
had not a white inhabitant. The first 
party of settlers landed in 1803. 

AN ILLUSTRATION NEARER HOME. 

The drainage of Indiana swamps has 
been of immeasurable benefit to the 
State and its inhabitants, as a whole. 
But it has ruined many men. There 
were farmers living on the borders of 
the swamps— thriftless, unenergetic 
men, who eked out a living from year 
to year on scanty crops of corn and 
hay, but who were wholly without 
means to pay the assessments neces- 
sary to defray the cost of draining the 
swamps. When the assessments came 
their farms were sold to meet them. 
It was hard luck to them. They were 
enjoying life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness in their own way and want- 
ed nothing but to be let alone. 

But the world cannot wait on such 
men. No man has any rights which 
are not subordinate to the general wel- 
fare of society. As the interdependence 
of men increases this truth grows and 
widens in its application. 



QrESTIO.NS OF THE HOUR 



The same tbiug is true of nations. No 
nation lives unto itself, any more than 
any man. The Divine command to 
"subdue the Earth" will not be exe- 
cuted until the whole earth and all its 
parts are made tributary to the com- 
fort and the happiness of the whole 
race of men. The lands adapted to 
groAV corn must grow it for mankind; 
the lands adapted to grow coffee must 
grow it for mankind. The Indians were 
holding in unproductiveness this vast 
Mississippi Valley, capable of produc- 
ing billions of bushels of corn and 
wheat. Was it not right that they 
should give it up to men who could 
develope its resources for the World's 
benefit? They were like the thriftless 
farmer with his forty acres on the 
edge of the swamp. 

There is no world's legislature to en- 
act these principles as law, nor any 
world's court to enfoi'ce them; but they 
exist, and they underlie emigrations, 
wars, revolutions, conquests and all 
the great movements of men. The 
actors do not think of it in that light. 
They are prompted by their several 
personal and selfish motives. They un- 
consciously work together to great 
ends. 

AN UNEXPECTED RESPONSIBILITY. 

I suppose no more unexpected thing 
ever happened to any nation than that 
which happened to us when the Philip- 
pine Islands fell into our hands. It 
was like finding a baby on the door- 
step. What should we do with them? 
What could we do with them? Spain's 
power was utterly broken. She could 
hold them no longer. The situation 
was extraordinary beyond precedent. 
The archipelago embraced a large num- 
ber ,of islands peopled by numerous 
tribes, speaking different languages, 
and exhibiting many grides of social 
condition, from the lowest savagery to 
a degree of civilization. Spain had 
been in nominal possession and control 
for three hundred years. In her wav 



she had Christianized a considerable 
part of the population. The Tagals, the 
most advanced of all the tribes, were 
at that time in rebellion against her 
authority. There were other tribes who 
had never really submitted to her con- 
trol. The condition of the Archipelago 
as a whole was one of chaos con- 
founded. 

In the situation which confronted- 
George Dewey next morning after the 
fight there was but one thing to do, 
and that was to hold everything as he 
found it for the time being. When 
the war was over, and the Peace Com- 
mission met in Paris, the same ques- 
tion loomed up, only in larger form. 
What- shall we do with the Philippine 
Islands? And again the only possible 
answer was, Take them over for the 
present and decide the final (luestion 
later. And to-day we are holding them 
just for the present, to decide the final 
question" later. 

But as time goes on the "pres- 
ent" expands and the "later" recedes. 
With no such previous intention or ex- 
pectation on our part, we have become 
schoolmaster of thePhilippinos. A large 
preparatory work has been done by 
Spain. But a vast work remains to do. 
We have on our hands there some peo- 
ple as docile as the Hindoos, some as 
teachable as the Javanese, some as 
savage as the New Zealanders, and 
some as implacable as the Tasmani- 
ans. What power on earth can under- 
take with greatest promise of success 
the vast task of educating, harmoniz- 
ing and civilizing those heterogenous 
and discordant peoples? There are 
only four nations at all competent for 
such a Avork. They are England, Ger- 
many, Holland and the United States; 
and of these no one can do it better 
than we can. If it is to the interest 
of the Philippinos and mankind that 
they shall remain under the control 
and guidance of any power foreign to 
themselves for a short time or a long 
time, we are the power, and it is ours 
to accept that responsibility and dis- 
charge that duty. 



10 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



WHAT SHALL WE SAY TO THEM? 

As respects the practical question of 
what we shall do now the main con- 
tention of Senator Hoar and those who 
think with him, is, that we should tell 
the Philippinos what Ave are going to 
do with them. We have the best of 
reasons for not doing that; we do not 
know ourselves. He holds that we 
should deal with them exactly as we 
dealt with Cuba, and say to them that 
we only await the pacification of the 
country to launch them on an inde- 
pendent career. But there is a wide 
difference betAveen the cases. When 
we declared war against Spain the 
situation was one which exposed us to 
a suspicion that our action was not as 
disinterested as we pretended. We 
could clear oiu-selves of that suspicion 
only by first making the declaration 
which we published that we would not 
take possession of Cuba for ourselves, 
and then keeping the promise. This 
it was practicable to do. The Cubans 
occupy one island. They have some 
mixture of races, but no highly intensi- 
fied race hostilities. There is ground 
to hope that they may be able to live 
peaceably together. We could not ra- 
tionally hope that as to the Philippi- 
nos. They are far behind the Cubans 
in fitness for self government. The 
Senator speaks of Cuba as though the 
problem of her future had been suc- 
cessfully solved. We do not know 
that. Suppose it should be otherwise, 
and she should prove to be unequal to 
the task of maintaining a .stable gov- 
ernment, what will we do? Sit by and 
see her torn to pieces by one revolution 
after another, like Venezuela? I sup- 
pose we would have to interfere again. 
We took the precaution to preserve 
that right, and compel her to agree to 
it before we withdrew our army. After 
pacifying the Island a second time, 
what will we do with it then? We 
have no assurance that we may not be 
confronted with that very question 
within ten years. It will be prudent 



to await the result of our experiment 
there before duplicating it in the Phil- 
ippine Islands. 

The underlying proposition of those 
who advocate Philippine independence 
is that every human being has an ab- 
solute right to liberty— not simply per- 
sonal liberty under the restraint and 
protection of law, but political liberty 
—the right to participate in govern- 
ment, and to be subject to no govern- 
ment to the institution of which over 
him he has not consented. That is 
not true. If it is, then our war against 
the south forty years ago was the 
greatest crime of all the ages. There 
was a great, intelligent, highly ad- 
vanced people who wanted to change 
their government. They believed that 
they had good reason to do so. Not 
onlj^ was their slave property in danger 
from northern aggression, but they were 
subjected to heavy burdens under our 
tariff system for the benefit of north- 
ern manufacturers. They wanted free 
trade with the world. They were so 
much in earnest about it that they for- 
bid protective duties in their constitu- 
tion. We sent armies into their coun- 
try and subjugated them, and com- 
pelled them to submit to a government 
which they detested. They have seen 
their error, and have learned to love 
the government which they hated; but 
That does not affect the question. They 
wore forced into submission by arms, 
precisely as the Philippinos have been. 
And yet that is one of the achieve- 
ments which Senator Hoar proposes to 
eugra .^e on the grand historic monu- 
ment which he so beautifully described 
in his speech. 

The truth is, that while there is a 
right side and a wrong side to every 
question of the establishment of gov- 
ernment over an unwilling people, the 
people themselves, wlio v.'ill be sub- 
jects of tlie government, if it be estab- 
lished, are not, iind cannot be permitted 
to be, the final judges on that point. 
Their mere wisli does not settle llie 
question, and ouglit not to Every such 
question poncevn« the whole world. It 



<,)l KSriONl^ Ol' THE iHH 



11 



is indispeusable that society shall be 
organized under governments. It is to 
the world's great interest that those 
governments shall be good govern- 
ments, such as shall be capable of pro- 
moting the welfare of their subjects 
and those who have relations with 
them, in the highest degree. 

If you ask who shall decide this 
question, I have to answer that there 
is no appointed tribunal authorized to 
decide it— no world's court with inter- 
national jurisdiction. It is a case in 
which, sad to say, might makes right, 
in large degree. And yet, not alto- 
gether, and less and less as the power 
of public opinion grows and extends. 
But harsh as it seems, we cannot es- 
cape by way of the theory that all 
men, everywhere, have the absolute 
right to choose their own form of gov- 
ernment and their own governors. 

I do not believe that our friends who 
approve the reasoning of Senator Hoar 
would apply their own theory to the 
Philippine Islands to-day if they had 
the power and responsibility all in 
their own hands. The archipelago 
contains more than a thousand islands, 
peopled by many different tribes speak- 
iiig many different languages and ow- 
ing neither love nor allegiance to one 
another. Each of these tribes has its 
own right, according to the theory I 
am combatting, to choose its own form 
of government and direct its own polit- 
ical destiny. Each one of them will 
choose to be independent and to run 
its government and affairs to suit it- 
self. We could not, according to this 
theory, rightfully compel any one of 
them to submit to the domination of 
any other one, any more than we can 
compel them all to submit to us. The 
only thing we could do would be to 
Avash our hands of the whole business 
and let every tribe shift for itself. 
That would leave the Islands in worse 
plight than that in which we found 
them, because Spain exercised a com- 
ijion authority over all of them and all 
their inhabitants. As to some of them 
it was hardly more than nominal, and 



as to others complete and eft'ective. 
But upon the whole, the domination of 
Spain was a blessing to tlie Islands. 
It lifted some of the tribes up from 
downright barbarism into a civiliza- 
tion intinitely better than savagery, 
and prepared them all for still further 
advances. 

Tlie fundamental principles of right 
and wrong do not change. If the 
things we are doing in the Philippine 
Islands are wrong and against human 
right, then the like things were always 
wrong. If that be so, the whole course 
of civilization has been wrong from 
the beginning. Every tribe which men 
found when they first sailed around 
the world ought to have been let alone 
as they found it. Madagascar is the 
type of what the islands of the sea 
vj'ould have been if they had all been 
dealt with on that principle. 

No, political liberty is not the pri- 
mary right; it is a boon to be deserved, 
to be eai-ned. Liberty follows dis- 
cipline. It belongs to those who are 
fit for it; and in higher degi'ee as their 
fitness is higher. Those communities 
and nations are entitled to it who can 
use it, and in the degree in which they 
can use it wiselj'. 

We made ourselves judge between 
Spain and Cuba; the events following 
have made us judge over the Philip- 
pinos. We have taken up the work 
which Spain laid down, to accomplish 
more. I trust, in twenty-five years than 
she could accomplish in a century. It 
is upon us to think for those people, 
plan for them, decide for them; to be, 
in a true sense, their school master. 
In the curriculum of that school the 
first lesson to be taught is obedience 
to law; the second is practical partici- 
pation In simple local administration; 
the third a limited exercise of the elect- 
ive franchise; the fourth, and othei'S 
following, larger and larger participa- 
tion in the affairs of government as 
they become fitted for it, with pro- 
gressive general education all along the 
line. 

How long it will take to reach the 



v^ 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



point at which we can safely put upon 
them full respouisibility for their own 
affairs as an independent nation it is 
impossible to foresee. That it may 
come is earnestly to be desired. That 
is, or ought to be, the goal of our ef- 
forts, the final object in view. I count 
it great good fortune to have known 
Governor Taft. The world has no fit- 
ter man for the great oflice he holds. 
He has been called to be a Savior to 
those feeble people. That it is to him 
a sacred task to w^hich he is giving 
his heart, .soul, mind and strength with 
apostolic consecration is not to be 
doubted. 

All in all, the government, under tlie 
administration of the republican par- 
ty, and against every hindrance and 
embarrassment which the democi'atic 
party could put in its way, has dealt 
wisely and well with the Philippine 
problem. The strong, wise, tender, 
conscientious treatment of Cubans, 
Philipplnos and Chinamen by Presi- 
dent McKinley — may his memory be 
ever green in the hearts of his coun- 
ti-ymen— has inscribed a glorious page 
in the history of the republic— aye, in 
the history of the world. I have no 
higher aspiration for myself nor to 
offer you than to follow his footsteps 
along these lines. 

TRUSTS. 
We are sharply confronted by one 
of the hardest problems of modern 
times in the trusts, as we call them. 
Partly from our happy-go-lucky dispo- 
sition to put off disagreeable tasks; 
partly from our doubts of our ability 
to cope with the difficulties presented; 
partly from the influence of great vest- 
ed interests, and partly from cowardice, 
w^e have drifted along with little effort 
to meet this question. Meanwhile it 
growls in importance and in difficulty. 
Few men will admit that they ought 
not to be dealt with by law; most men 
belicA'e that they must be dealt with 
by law before long or the gravest evils 
will follow. The responsibility is on 



us. It is our duty to apply our best 
powers to the study of the subject and 
to discuss it with unshrinking can- 
dor. 

The word is a misnomer, as now ap- 
plied. The first great combinations or- 
ganized in this country to control busi- 
ness were trusts in a proper sense. The 
stockholders of a number of corpora- 
tions engaged in the same business as 
competitors would pool their stock in 
the hands of a small body of trustees, 
who would thus hold the voting power 
in all the^ corporations, and so be able 
to direct and control them as though 
they were one corporation, and thus 
suppress all competition among them. 
This Avas the nature of the original 
Standard Oil combination, and, I be- 
lieve, of the original Sugar Trust. 

Such arrangements are so palpably 
unlawful — such clear violations of the 
common law against combinations in 
restraint of tra,de that they quickly 
went to pieces when vigorously at- 
tacked in court. So another mode of 
reaching the same result was adopted. 
The corporations desiring to combine 
to control their common business Sm- 
ply caused to be organized one mon.ster 
corporation with an authorized capital 
sufficient to buy up all the corporations 
proposing to unite in the scheme. This 
is the form which these combinations 
usually take in recent years. But hav- 
ing become accustomed in the earlier 
discussion of the subject to the use of 
the word "trusts," we still continue to 
cail great combinations in business by 
*iat name, although they are really, 
now, for the most part, simply huge 
corporations. 

We ought not to be surprised at the 
appearance of these organizations. 
They are, not the result of any new 
badness in human nature. They are 
but one manifestation of the modern 
tendency to do things on a great scale. 
This tendency is irresistible. It not 
only cannot be arrested, but it ought 
not to be arrested. It is the way of 
the v>'orld's progress. We might as r 
well attempt to put a year-old rooster I 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



13 



back into his native shell as to try to 
force the world's business bacli to its 
old scale and methods. So far as their 
mere scale of operations is concerned 
the big combinations are here to stay, 
and grow in size and increase in num- 
ber. 

What is there, then, to do, or propose, 
that is worth talking about? 

THE GENESIS OF THE COMBINES. 

I think I can express my thought 
most clearly by beginning at what ap- 
pears to me to be the origin of the con- 
ditions which present this perplexing 
problem. We founded our social order 
on the doctrine of equal rights and free 
competition. Our fathers supposed that 
to give every man an equal chance lui- 
der the law to apply his energies in his 
own way to such work as he preferred 
was the surest guaranty of general 
prosperity and happiness. We applied 
this doctrine to mean that the individ- 
ual man was not only entitled to this 
equality and freedom of competition in 
every field and form of individual exer- 
tion, but in every lawful form of asso- 
ciated exertion, as by the formation of 
corporations. Upon the subject of 
these organizations our laws were lax 
and our practice laxer. JN^en were per- 
mitted to erect corporations at will, and 
to issue stock and bonds for any con- 
sideration or no consideration, as they 
pleased. The law took no notice of their 
management or affairs except under in- 
.solvency or bankrupt laws. 

The conditions thus introduced afford- 
ed opportunity for the exploitation of 
business enterprises on unlimited scale 
Avith very little money. Such an attrac- 
tive field was bound to have its occu- 
pants. The promoter has become a rec- 
ognized character. He need not be a 
person having any of the old fashioned 
mailly and useful qualities. Ho need 
not have the executive ability to run a 
factory or manage a railroad, nor the 
skill of an inventor, nor the craft of an 
artisan. But he must have shrewdness, 
plausibility, nerve, with a touch of un~ 



scrupulousness. The skill which these 
men have acquired in the art of pro- 
moting the largest enterprise with the 
least money, the tricks they practice 
with common stock, preferred stock 
and bonds, have given the world a new 
illustration of the versatility of the hu- 
man mind. It is out of these conditions 
that the combines have arisen. They 
have brought with them many balefnl 
consequences, and they threaten many 
more. Let me enumerate some of them. 

They wrong the people in the matter 
of prices. They pay too little and 
charge too much. The proof of this fact 
is partly in the existence of the oppor- 
tunity. We know the instincts of human 
nature. A combination which has con- 
trol, whether total or partial, of the 
available supply of a commodity will 
use that control for its own advantage. 
It may be wise enough not to use it 
extravagantly — to hold its prices at a 
level which will not strangle consump- 
tion, nor dangerously tempt competi- 
tion. But it will use it, and in th^ de- 
gree and manner supposed to be most 
profitable to itself, according tl) the 
views of its managers. 

The proof of this fact is further mani- 
fest in tlie profits made by the concerns. 
How did Carnegie and Schwab and 
Frick malvo their hundreds of millions? 
Not in stock speculations, gold mining 
or railroad working, but in iron and 
steel manufacture. No reasbnable prof- 
its could have yielded such fabulous 
sums in so short a time. The United 
States Steel Corporation was incorpor- 
ated a year and a half ago with a capi- 
talization ill stock of one billion, one 
hundred thousand dollars, and three 
hundred million dollars in bonds. The 
record of its transactions reads like 
a chapter from Monte Cristo. A state- 
ment recently issued by the company 
shows that its net earnings for three 
months past were $36,764,(3-t3, and for 
nine months past, .$101,142,158. I do not 
think it is supposable that the real 
value of the company's property ex- 
ceeds $500,000,000. If not, its earnings 
for the last nine months equal twenty 



14 



QUESTIOXS OP THE HOUR 



per cent of its real capital. I d;) not 
doubt that it is phuidering the people 
of the United States to-day to the ex- 
tent of one dollar per annum for every 
man, woman and child in the country 
in its unjust prices. 

I do not know how many millionaires 
and multi-millionaires have been bred 
by the Standard Oil Company. The 
great one is Mr. Rockefeller. But ev- 
ery little while an obituary notice dis- 
closes that somebody has taken ever- 
lasting leave of a million, or some mill- 
ions, his possession of which is ex- 
plained by the statement that he was 
a Standard Oil magnate. 

I once traveled across the continent 
with a man Avho raised sheep on the 
plains by the hundred thousands, and 
shipped part of them— so many of 
them as he could not find sale for on 
the Pacific coast— to Chicago by the 
train load. He told me that there was 
practically but one sheep buyer in the 
Chicago market. He said that he was 
once so outraged by an offer made to 
him that he refused it, and undertook 
to mafte a stand on the price. A whole 
day passed, and no one offered any- 
thing for his sheep; another day with 
the same result, and then a third; when 
he took his medicine and sold his sheep 
for less than the first offer. 

The meat trust may be too slippery 
a combine to be caught by the law; but 
of its existence none of us have any 
doubt. I do not think that it is wholly 
responsible— perhaps not at all, for the 
late rise in the retail price of meat. 
Thei'e are other causes— legitimate 
causes, enough to account for that. It 
was simply collecting ungodly profits 
before the rise, and has not omitted to 
do so since. 

Out of these unjust profits the ex- 
ploiters of the combines build up for- 
tunes so vast and so suddenly acquired 
that the effect on themselves and on 
society is demoralizing and corrupting. 
The spectacle of mushroom million- 
aires springing up everywhere excites 
in one class of men the impulse to do 
likewise, fills them with a feverish 



longing for wealth and makes them im- 
patient of the slow progress of earning 
a modest competence. Another class 
of men, conscious of their inability to 
emulate the milliou-geiters, take it out 
in hating them, and cursing the gov- 
ernment, the law and the society which 
permit such inequalities to exist among 
men. 

Worse than this, the aggregated 
wealth of the combines corrupts all 
public agencies— the press, the legisla- 
ture, the schools, the very pulpit. Not 
universally, nor Avholly, but insidious- 
ly and ii-resistibly. It sets up false 
standards, exalts the importance of 
dress, ornaments, equipages and style, 
and relegates to contempt the simple, 
plain, wholesome ways of life. 

All this Is brought about by a wicked 
and cruel interference with that very 
equality and freedom of competition 
which we pretend to maintain by law. 

If all our corporations were what 
they profess to be — the simple consoli- 
dation in one fund of the money of 
the stockholders, there would still be 
a great advantage to them, and one in 
which society would share, in the in- 
creased efficiency of the money, skill 
and energy thus concentrated in one 
enterprise. But that would not be an 
unjust advautage. Such a corporation 
is only an enlarged and modified part- 
nership. But the opportunity now 
given by our loose laws and our looser 
administration of them to organize cor- 
porations on fictitious capital, and so 
secure credit and do business without 
the investment of money destroys 
equality and freedom of competition. 
By this license the law adds to the 
natural inequalities of men an unjust 
artificial inequality. It favors most 
those who need favor least. It is only 
daring, audacious, resourceful men that 
can avail themselves of the opportuni- 
ty given by the law to organize com- 
bines. To put millions and billions of 
dollars into their pockets by making 
them thus favored of the law is horri- 
bly unjust. 

There is no more pathetic fact in life 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



15 



than the natural variousuess of gifts 
among men. The fact that of half a 
dozen boys, nursed by the same mother, 
brought up arouud the same table, edu- 
cated at the same school, one shall 
achieve a large success in life while the 
others struggle along in obscure medi- 
ocrity, is one of the sad but apparently 
remediless incidents of our existence. 
That the law shall interfere to aggra- 
vate that variousness and give to one 
of those boys the chance to become a 
Rockefeller, or a Schwab, while the 
others run plows or railroad trains, is, 
as I have said, wicked and cruel. 

THE REMEDY. 

All this is easy to say. Even a Demo- 
crat could say it. But It is nothing but 
sounding brass and tinkling cymbals 
unless one has .something to suggest in 
the way of remedy. If these evils can 
not be cured it is not worth while to 
complain about them; if they can, then 
how? 

A man would be very vain to suppose 
that he had solved the problem. But if 
he has thought about it, his thought be- 
longs to his fellows, so it be offered 
modestly and as his contribution to the 
general discussion. This is mine. 

First. Let us correct our primary and 
greatest mistake — the license to launch 
corporations on a basis of fictitious 
stock. Let us require all corporate 
stock to be paid for in cash, at par, or in 
property actually worth its face in cash. 

Second. Require all existing corpora- 
tions to conform their organizations to 
this principle by either reducing their 
stock to the net value of their prop- 
erty, or paying to the company the dif- 
ference between the face value of the 
stock and the actual consideration paid 
for it when issued. 

Third. Subject all corporations to 
such powers of visitation and examina- 
tion by the government and such re- 
quirements to make reports at stated 
times or when called on in such pre- 
scribed and uniform modes as shall put 



it within the power of the government 
to know that all corporations observe at 
all times the conditions of fair competi- 
tion in business. 

The purpose and effect of these three 
requirements would be to eliminate 
water from corporation stocks, and to 
compel the business of corporations to 
be carried on upon a clean basis of ac- 
tual values. It would not put any lim- 
itation upon the scale of business nor 
prevent monopolies. For that we have 
now in the common law, and by statute 
in most of the states, prohibition of all 
agreements in restraint of trade. We 
really need little or no further legisla- 
tion to enable us to prevent monopolies 
of that kind — that is, monopolies rest- 
ing upon agreements, except some moi-e 
effective means of enforcing existing 
law, and particularly, of discovering 
the existence of such agreements, I 
suppose no one doubts that there exists 
an anthracite coal trust, resting on 
agreements among the railroads and 
mine owners; but it is probably impo.s- 
sible to prove that fact under existing 
laws. The power of visitation and ex- 
amination proposed in the third of the 
foregoing suggestions would go far to 
make it possible to unearth such agree- 
ments. If it were provided that, in 
such investigations, the officers and 
agents of the company might be exam- 
ined under oath it would be hard to con- 
ceal the existence of such agreements 
from faithful and diligent officials. 

But there is another kind of monop- 
oly—one not resting in agreements 
among those engaged in the field of 
industry monopolized, but in ownership 
of the mines, materials, railroads, 
boats, factories or other property on 
which the conduct of the business de- 
pends. If one company owned all the 
copper mines in the United States, it 
would have a monopoly of copper pro- 
duction in this country without any 
agreement with anybody. Such a 
monopoly need not be absolute in or- 
der to be largely, or even wholly, ef- 
fective for the control of prices. I 
believe that the Sugar Trust supplies 



IG 



QUESTIONS OP THE HOUR 



about seveuty-five per cent of the 
sugar used in this country. But that 
is enough to enable it to control the 
prices. The air has been full of ru- 
mors of an impending consolidation of 
the great meat packers in one coi'por- 
ation with a capital of five hundred 
million dollars. Such a corporation 
would be able to dictate in a large de- 
gree botla the price of cattle to the 
farmer and the price of meat to the 
consumer throughout the' United States 
although it would neither buy nor 
slaughter all the animals. 

It follows that the provisions of law 
I have, so far .suggested would not, of 
themselves, suppress monopolies, be- 
cause it would still be possible to or- 
ganize a corporation with such capital 
as would enable it to secure substan- 
tial control of a given branch of indus- 
try. Nor is there any. way in which 
that can be done without impairing 
that freedom of competition which is 
the very corner stone of our industrial 
system; the very breath of industrial 
life. I am not willing to give- that up. 
To give it up means socialism, the con- 
trol of all Industry by the state, the 
paralysis of individual energy, the ex- 
tinction of the strongest forces of hu- 
man progress. ■ Anything but that. 

But we need not be reduced to that 
alternative— monopoly or socialism. We 
can give free play to men's activities, 
and let them do business on as large a 
scale as they please without that. The 
vastness of the scale brings in some 
incidental consequences that are dis- 
agreeable. Mr. Bryan's gush about 
the "young man Absalom" had a pa- 
thetic truth in it. The consolidation 
of all business in the control of a few 
great concerns does appear to .shut the 
door of opportunity against young men. 
It makes the old-fashioned, honorable, 
independent career impossible to most 
of them. It offers them instead mere 
employment. That employment car- 
ries with it possibilities of reward far 
beyond any that were offered under 
the old order. There is a chance for 
one Charles SchwjCb among a million. 



But W'3 would rather see more mod- 
erate chances for a greater number. 

Mr. Bryan, with his usual shallow- 
ness, discussed the misfortunes of Ab- 
salom as though all the conditions 
which he deplored could be undone; as 
though the great corporations could 
be broken up into little ones; the long 
railroads chopped into short pieces, and 
the department stores scattered over 
the city again. But that is impossible 
if we are to hold fast to free compe- 
tition. The . aggregation of business 
brings with it increased economy of 
production, increased profit to pro- 
ducers and progressive cheapening of 
the product. With competition free 
these advantages are boimd to impel 
men to widen- the scale of business 
more and more as long as further ad- 
vantage is attainable by that means. 
To those conditions we must submit, 
and we must accommodate ourselves 
to the incidents which are inseparable 
from them. 

This means that we cannot prevent 
by law that form of monopoly, or ap- 
proximate monopoly, which consists in 
the ownership and control by a single 
corporation of any portion or all of 
the material, machinery and output of 
a particular branch of industry. But 
it does not mean that we. must endure 
all the wrongs which such monopolies 
may be disposed to inflict upon us. 

The impelling motive which actuates 
the promoters and managers of a cor- 
poration is to make money.' If a cor- 
poration has such control of the field 
of its business that it can name its 
own prices for what it buys or sells, or 
both, it will exercise that power so 
as to make the most money it can out 
of it. There are considerations which 
will set some limit on its impulses, 
according to the wisdom of its man- 
agement. Very extravagant prices 
tend to discourage consumption, pro- 
voke public discontent to dangerous 
pitch and stimulate competition. There 
is a point beyond which it would ba 
suicidal for the meat combine to ad- 
vance prices. The same thing is true 



QliE«Tl().\^ ()F THE tiUl JC 



of the Standard Oil, Sugar, and Steel 
Trusts, and all other monopolies of 
products of general cousuiuption, Tlais 
circumstance is our protection against 
being swallowed alive. 

The wise monopolist's prices will bo 
carefully fixed so as to yield the high- 
est permanent pi'ofit without chok'ng 
the demand or offering too much In- 
centive to competition, or stu-ring up 
too much public indignation. With 
the business all in few hands, and con- 
ducted on a scale so immense, and in 
such secrecy that the public can forq^ 
no close judgment of the cost of pro- 
duction, pi'ices can be fixed and per- 
manently maintained which are in fact 
unjust and oppressive. I believe that 
we are suffering from that injustice 
to-day. I believe that Ave ai'e paying 
unjxist prices for our meat, oil, sugar, 
steel, rubber goods and all other com- 
modities controlled by the trusts. The 
mai-gin of excess is not extravagant, 
but it is an excess and an injustice. 
And the tendency will be to an aggra- 
vation of that injustice as men become 
more skillful in the art of monopoly 
and more and more of the industries 
of the country come within the control 
of the combines. How shall we meet 
this danger and still preserve the prin- 
ciple of free competition? 

The three suggestions already offer- 
ed go some way in that direction. If 
they were embodied in the law, and 
the law were enforced, the formation 
of monopolistic combines would be 
shorn of its main attractiveness. I 
think the principal incentive to those 
schemes is the prospect of immediate 
profit out of the watered stock issues 
of the big corporation. I suppose that, 
as a rule, the owners of the constitu- 
ent corporations that go into a great 
combine receive two or three times the 
real value of their property in stock 
and securities of the new concern. If 
that speculation were forbidden, the 
pi'omoter would find his occupation 
comparatively unprofitable. An addi- 
tional and great discouragement to the 
organization of combines would be 



found in the requirement that they 
must carry on their business under the 
scrutiny of the government and with 
more or less publicity. 

At the same time we need not. and 
we ought not to i-ely wholly on these 
repressive and deterrent influences of 
the law. We ought to provide punish- 
ment for combines which use their 
power to wrong the people by the im- 
position of unjust prices. I do not 
mean that we should fix prices in ad- 
vance by law. That would not only 
be impossible to do wisely, but it would 
cut out free competition by the roots. 
It is one thing to foresee in advance 
what will be a just price for sugar next 
year; quite a different thing to ascer- 
tain what was a just price for it last 
year. The unknown factors of the 
future become known factors in the 
past. 

It is true that in such a scheme of 
control as I am discussing the legal in- 
vestigation of the justice of prices 
would involve questions with which 
courts do not ordinarily deal at pres- 
ent. "When it is necessary to know 
what was a just price for a given com- 
modity at a given time in the past the 
law commonly looks to the market 
price. But a market price is one which 
rests on competition. If there was no 
competition and no possibility of it 
there was no market price in the legal 
sense of those words; only a price in 
the market fixed by the arbitrary will 
of one person. But there is always a 
just price. And this the law can as- 
certain with approximate accuracy by 
methods not impracticably difficult, 
nor violently novel. To the three sug- 
gestions heretofore made I therefore 
add the following: 

Fourth. The law should provide that 
a corporation having under its control 
such a large proportion of the business 
in any branch of trade or industry that 
it can dictate prices, which shall use 
that power to impose upon the public 
unjust prices, shall be punished in 
some suitable and adequate manner. 

In such a case the wrong is not that 



18 



QUESTIOXJS OF THE HOl'lt 



Ihe company is big, uor that it has a 
monopoly by its mere ownersliip of 
all the supply, machinery or output of 
a given industry, nor that it can con- 
trol prices, uor that it does control 
them; but that it exercises that po^yer 
unjustly. That is the wrong. What 
can the law do but forbid the wrong 
and punish the wrongdoer? 

Such a law would not apply to any 
transactions except those of a concern 
holding a monopoly. Prices made by 
competition ought not to be interfered 
with by the law. It is only wheie 
dealers, either singly or in combination, 
lift themselves above competition that 
there is occasion for such interference. 

CONSTITUTIONAL AMKNDMENT. 

It would be impossible to secure the 
enactment and enforcement of such 
laws as I have suggested by the state 
legislatures and governments. They 
lack the necessary power. Each one 
of them can deal only with persons and 
things within the borders of its own 
jurisdiction. They would be certain, 
also, to lack the disposition to act har- 
moniously. No power exists which can 
cope with the difficulties to be encoun- 
tered except the congress and courts 
of the United States. To make avail- 
able that power will require an amend- 
ment of the Constitution of the United 
States. 

The only authority which Congress 
has now to legislate on the subject of 
monopolies is found in the so-called 
"commerce clause" of the constitution 
\Yhich is in these words: "The Con 
gress shall have power to regulate com 
merce with foreign nations and among 
the several states and with the Indian 
tribes." In the exercise of this power 
Congress enacted the law creating the 
Inter State Commerce Commission and 
the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. The 
former relates to railroads passing 
through or into more than one state, 
and is plainly within the authority 
granted; because the whole business 
of a railroad is commerce. 



The anti-trust law was approved July 
2, 1890. It is of such interest in this 
connection that I will quote the first 
and second sections of it. 

"All act to protect trade and comnierct! 
against unlawful restraints and monopo- 
lies. 

"Sec. 1. Every contract, combination 
in tlie form of trust or otlierwise, or 
conspiracy, in restraint of trade or com- 
n.erce among thp several States, or with 
foreign nations, is hereby declared to bo. 
illegal. Every person who sliall make 
aiiy such contract or engage in any snch 
ccnibinalion or conspiracy, shall be deem- 
ed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on con- 
viction thereof, shall be punished by a 
fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, 
or by imprisonment not exceeding one 
year, or ))y lioth said punishments, in 
the discretion of the court. 

"Sec. 2. Every person who shall mo- 
nopolize, or attempt to monopolize, or 
combine or conspire with any other ]«er- 
son or persons, to monopolize any jiart 
of the trade or commerce among the sev- 
eral States, or with foreign nations, shall 
be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, 
on conviction thereof, shall be punished 
by fine not exceeding five thousand dol- 
lars, or by imprisonment not exceeding 
one year, or by both said punishments, 
iu the discretion of the court." 

In 1893 the Government brought suit 
under this law against the American 
Sugar Refining Company, commonly 
known as the Sugar Trust, and four of 
the refining companies which had been 
absorbed by it, asking to have the con- 
tract under which the American Sugar 
Refining Company had purchased the 
stock of the other companies set aside 
and the combination declared unlawful. 
The judgment of the court was adverse 
to the Government, first, in the Circuit 
Court, then in the United States Circuit 
Court of Appeals, and, finally, in the 
Supreme Court of the United States. 

The point of the decision was, that 
the law was confined in its operation to 
commerce and did not extend to manu- 
facture; that it was necessarily so lim- 
ited, not only by its terms, but by the 
words of the constitution; that the 
Sugar Trust was engaged in manufac- 
ture, and not in commerce, within the 



(,)ri:sTio.\s OF the houk 



J9 



meaning of the law and tlio constitu- 
tion. The foilowiny quotation from 
the opinion of Chief Justice Fuller will 
exhibit the distinction thus drawn. 

"Commerce succoeds to in;uuif;ieturo, 
and is not a part ui it. Tiic powt-r to 
rej;ul;ite conunerce is tlic power to pre- 
scribe tile rule by wliicii ('(unuierce shall 
be governed, and is a iiu^er iiulepandciit 
of the power to suppresss snonopoly. But 
it may operate in repression of uiouopoly 
whenever that comes witliin the riil<;s by 
which couunerce is s,^<)verned or when- 
over the transaction is itself a monopoly 
of commerce. * * '■' The fact that an 
article is manufjictured for export to 
another State does not of itself moke it 
an article of interstate commerce, and 
the intent of the manufacturer does not 
determine the time when the article or 
product passes from the control. of the 
State and belongs to couunerce." — Unit- 
ed States vs. E. C. Knight Co. et al., 15(> 
U. S. Rep. 1. 

One member of the Court — Mr. Jus- 
tice Harlan, dissented from the deci- 
sion. But his strong and earnest opin- 
ion stands alone against the judgment 
of his eight as.sociates, the three judges 
of the Court of Appeals and the judgv 
who sat in the Circuit Court — twelve 
judges to one. The case was decided by 
the Supreme Court in 1895, and though 
often referred to since in other deci- 
sions has never been questioned as to 
the main proposition covered by it. We 
are bound to take it, 1 think, as a final 
settlement of, the meaning of the anti- 
trust law and of the commerce clatise of 
the constitution, so far as that was in- 
volved. Accepting that view of the de- 
cision, the following extracts from Jus- 
tice Harlan's dissenting opinion have 
a suggestiveness and force after the 
lapse of seven years even greater than 
when they were penned. 

'Tf this combination, so far as its op- 
erations necessarily or directly affect in- 
terstate commerce, cannot be restrained 
or suppressed under some power granted 
to Congress, it will bo cause for reg:-ct 
that the patriotic statesmen who framed 
the Constitution did not foresee the ne- 
cessity of investing the national govern- 
ment' with power to deal with gigantic 
monopolies holding in their grasp, and in- 



juriously controlling in their own inter- 
est, the entire trade among the States 
in food products that are essential to the , 
comfort of every household in the land. 
* * * 

"We have before us the case of a '.'om- 
bii|^tion which absolutely controls, or 
may, at its discretion, control the i)rice 
of all retined sugar in this country. Sup- 
pose another combination, organized for 
private gain and to control prices, should 
obtain possession of all the large flour 
mills in the United States; another, of all 
the grain elevators; another, of all the 
oil territory; another, of all the salt-pro- 
ducing regions; another, of all the cot- 
ton mills; and another, of all the great 
establishments for slaughtering animals, 
and the preparation of meats. What 
power is competent to protect the people 
of the United States against such dan- 
gers except a national power — one that 
is capable of exerting its sovereign au- 
thority throughout every part of the ter- 
ritory and over all the people of the na- 
tion?" 

The prophetic supposition of the 
learned Justice — no less statesman 
than jtidge, is unfolding in reality. The 
last authentic stimmary which I have 
seen of the number and capitalization 
of trusts in the United States, or cor- 
porations which we call by that name 
— that found in the Commercial Year 
Books for 1900 and 1901, shows a list 
of over two hundred with aggregate 
capitalization, in stock and bonds, of 
over eight billions of dollars. 

WIIL NOT CURE ITSELF. 

We sometimes hear people say that 
the trust business is only a passing 
phase of industrial development; that 
the question will solve itself if we. will 
let it alone. Why should it? Will men 
ever grow tired of making mouej'? 
Will the race of daring, shrewd, un- 
scruptilous men. quick to take advan- 
tage of every easy way to make big 
money die out? Not so. A certain 
type of promoters may have their day. 
Certain kinds of schemes may lose 
their power to attract. But the great, 
greedy corporation, gathering within 
its grasp whole fields of industry, and 
levying on the public all tribute which 



20 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



it can maintain and collect, has with- 
in itself po seeds of mortality. 

It is common to speak of this subject 
with a certain reservation; as that "If 
there is no other way, we must amend 
the Constitution." Why say 'if?." We 
know there is no other way. There is 
nothing to add to Justice Harlan's sad 
protest against the momentous decision 
of the court. Time has confirmed— is 
dailj'^ confirming the truth of his sol- 
emn declaration that there is no power 
given among men that can save the 
people of this country from the com- 
plete and perpetual domination of these 
vast combinations except the power of 
the government of the United States; 
and that can be invoked only by an 
amendment of the Constitution. It 
behooves us to be up and about it 
without further delay. This, therefore, 
to make the series complete, is my final 
suggestion. 

Fifth. Amend the Constitution of the 
United States to provide that Congress 
shall have like ample power to regu- 
late and control corporations, whether 
organized under the laws of the sev- 
eral States or under the laws of Con- 
gress. 

THE BEEF TRUST SUIT, 

I do not mean to say that the Sher- 
man Anti-Trust Law is incapable of 
useful application. It has been in- 
voked in the suit now pending in Chi- 
cago against the Beef Trust. A large 
part of the business of that combina- 
tion is the purchase of cattle in vari- 
ous states and territories, and the ship- 
ment of them and of the slaughtered 
and cured meats from state to state. 
Unless we are all greatly mistaken, it 
is engaged in interstate commerce on 
a vast scale. There seems reason to 
believe that the case may so far differ 
in that respect from the Sugar Trust 
case that the law may be upheld and 
enforced against the Beef Barons. We 
may rest assured that the Attorney 
General and his assistants will do all 
that is in the power of lawyers to se- 
cure that result. 



SUMMARY. 

To recapittilate concisely, I say that 
we must en^ct such laws as shall 

1. Require all corporate stock to be 
paid for at par In cash or property at 
its cash value; 

2. Require existing corporations to 
conform to this principle by reducing 
their capital stock to an amount equal 
to the actual value of their property; 

3. Require publicity of all coi-poi'ate 
business by sworn i-eports and official 
examinations; 

4. Provide for the punishment of 
any corporation having a monopoly 
which shall abuse its power by the 
imposition of unjust prices. 

5". Amend the Constitution of the 
United States so as to give Congress 
power to pass these laws. 

This program will shock some timor- 
ous people. They will say it is impos- 
sible. "WTiy so? Exactly such laws 
exist and are enforced in the case of 
national banks. Their stock must be 
paid for in cash; if their capital be- 
comes impau'ed they must make it 
good; they have to make reports and 
submit to exammations; if they exact 
an unlawful price for money they are 
subject to punishment. Substantially 
similar provisions exist in respect to 
insurance companies and tinist coou- 
panies in most of the states. Such 
laws would require nothing from a 
corporation except that it shall conduct 
its business exactly as an honest man 
would conduct the same business as an 
individual, subject only to the visitorial 
power necessary to enable the govern- 
ment to know that it is being so con- 
ducted. We ought to have enacted 
such laws a hundred years ago. But it 
is not too late now. They would con- 
fiscate no man's property, abridge no 
man's just right, put no impediment 
in the way of business, hamper no 
man's useful activity, deprive no man 
of his just reward for woi*k well done. 
On the other hand, they would pre- 
serve the vital principle of free com- 
petition unimpaired. Eveiy man would 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



21 



have equal chance to do his best, alone, 
or in fair association with others. 
Great fortunes would be made— not in 
a daj', by organizing paper corpora- 
tions, but by successful conduct of real 
business, and without wrong towax'd 
the' public. Wealth so obtained would 
be more wisely used, would excite less 
envy, and would have less demoraliz- 
ing influence on society. Why should 
we not set our faces at once toward a 
reform so great, so beneficent, so en- 
tirely practicable? 

The task is one for the republican 
party. It has the responsibility and 
the ability. Will it take it up in earn- 
est? 

There's the rub. Great mouied, so- 
cial and iwlitical interests, friendly to 
us, will oppose such measures at every 
step. Have we the mor31 courage to 
put those things behind us and go for- 
Avard in the unwavering discharge of 
duty? Our party needs a waking up. 
We are like the too worldly Scotch con- 
gregation whose distressed pastor 
prayed the Lord 'to take this people in 
Thy hand and shak 'em ower Hell," 
but, he added, "dinna let 'em fall." 

THE president's ADDRESSES. 

The country has heard nothing for a 
year, that I recall, in Congress or out 
of it, on this subject, from any repub- 
lican leader except the President. He 
discussed it in his message to Con- 
gress at the opening of the last ses- 
sion, and has discussed it since with 
his accustomed force and frankness at 
many times and places, beginning, I 
believe, at Pittsburgh on the Fourth 
of July. It will be of interest in this 
connection to refresh our memories by 
a brief extract from his address at 
Wheeling, a month ago. I quote from 
a report in the public press. 

"It is a good deal like taking care by 
the engineers of the lower Mississippi 
River. No one can dam the Mississippi. 
If the nation started to dam it, its lime 
would be wasted. It would not hurt the 
Mississippi, it would only damage the 
population alon^ the banks. You cannot 



dam the current; you can build levees, 
and keep the current within bounds and 
shape its direction. 

"Now I think that is exactly what we 
cau do with these great corporations, 
known as trusts. W( cannot dam them, 
we cannot reverse the industrial touden- 
cies of the age. If we succeeded in do- 
ing it, then the cities like Wheeling will 
have to go out of business, remember 
til at. You cannot put a stop to or re- 
verse the industrial tendencies of the age. 
You can control and regulate them, so 
tJiat they will do no harm. * * * 

The change in industrial conditions has 
been literally immeasurable. Those 
changed conditions make necessary gov- 
ernmental changes thi-ough regulation 
and supervision. Such changes, were not 
provided for and couid not have been 
provided for in default of a knowledge of 
prophecy by the men who founded the 
republic. 

In those days any state could take 
care perfectly well of any corporation 
within its limits, and all it had to do was 
to try to encourage their upbuilding. Now 
the big corporations, although nominally 
the creatures of one state, usually do 
business in other states, and in a very 
large number of cases the wide variety 
of state laws on tlfe subject of corpora- 
tions has brought about the fact that the 
corporation is made in one state, but 
does almost all its work in entirely dif- 
ferent states. 

It has proved utterly impossible to get 
anytliing like uniformity of legislation 
among the states. Some states have 
passed laws about corporations, whicii, if 
they had not been ineffective, would have 
totally prevented any important corpo- 
rate work being done within their limits. 
Other states have such lax laws i-hat 
there is no effective effort made to con- 
trol any of the abuses. 

As a result we have a system of di- 
vided control — where the nation has 
something to say, but it is a little diflS- 
cult to know exactly how much, and 
where the different states have each 
something to say, but where there 
is no supreme power that can speak with 
authority. * * * 

Now, I want you to take my M'ords at 
their exact value. I think — I cannot say 
I am sure, because it has often happened 
in the past that Congress has passed 
laws with a given purpose in view, and 
when that law has been judicially inter- 



22 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



preted it has proved that the purpose 
was not achieved — but I think that by 
legislation additional power in the way 
of regulation of at least a number of 
those great corporations can be conferred 
upon the general government. But, gen- 
tlemen, I firmly believe that in the end 
power must be given, probably through 
a constitutional amendment, to the na- 
tional government to exercise in full 
supervision and regulation of those gi'eat 
enterprises. * * * 

The mere fact of the publicity itself 
will tend to stop many of the evils and 
it will show that some of the all'.*ged 
evils are imaginary. And, finally, in 
making evident the remaining faults, 
those that are not imaginary, and are not 
cured by the light of day itself, it will 
give us an intelligent proposition as to 
the methods to take in getting at them. 

We should have under all circum- 
stances one sovereign to which the big 
corporations should be responsible — a 
sovereign in whose courts the corpora- 
tion could be held accountable for any 
failure to comply with the laws of the 
legislature of that sovereign. I do not 
think you can accomplish that among the 
forty-six sovereigns of the states. I 
think that it will have to be through the 
national government. 

It would be unjust to the President to 
omit to emphasize the conservative, 
cautious, kindly spirit in which he ap- 
proaches the subject, and in which he 
advises that legislation must proceed. 
This from his speech at Concord, N. H., 
Aug. 28, will show that he is proposing 
no program of demolition. 

"If we approach these problems in a 
spirit of hysteria we will fail, as well as 
deserve to fail; if w^e approach them in 
a spirit of envy and rancor and 'nalioe 
toward our fellows, we will not only fail, 
but we will drag them and us in a com- 
mon ruin. Shame to us if we wink at 
the evils; They are there. Shame to us 
if we fear to face the problem! Face 
the problem, realize the gravity and then 
approach it in a spirit not merely of deter- 
mination to solve it, but of hearty desire 
to solve it with justice to all, with malice 
to none; to solve it in a spirit of broad 
kindhness and charity; in a spirit that 
will keep us ever in mind that if we are 
to succeed at all, it must be by each 
doing to the best of his capacity his own 



business, and yet by each rememboi'ing 
that in a sense he is also his brother's 
keeper." 

It is an extraordinary thing for the 
Pi'esident of the United States to dis- 
cuss such a question in such a way. 
But his object is plain. It is to arouse 
his party to arouse Congress to actiou. 
There is need of it. ■ He is the man 
to do it. The President is the one man 
who commands the universal ear. 
When he speaks we all listen. He is the 
one man who represents us ail; the one 
man put in office by us all; the one man 
responsible to us all. 

PLATFORM OF I90O. 

The platform upon which William 
McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt were 
nominated two years ago said this: 

"We recognize the necessity and pro- 
priety of the honest co-operation of cap- 
ital to meet new business conditions, and 
especially to extend our rapidly increas- 
ing foreign trade; but we condeuui all 
conspiracies and combinations intended 
to restrict business, to create monopolies, 
to limit production, or to control prices, 
and favor such legislation as will effec- 
tively restrain and prevent all such 
abuses, protect and promote competition, 
and secure the rights of producers, labor- 
ers and all who are engaged in industry 
and commerce." 

If platforms meau anything, this 
platform was a pledge to the people 
that, if continued in pow'er, the repub- 
lican party would endeavor by legisla- 
tion to remedy evils of the trusts. What 
has it done in performance of that 
pledge? Nothing; absolutely nothing. 
It has not tried to do anything. The 
President's speeches are to the pub- 
lie; but they are none the less a duty 
call to his party to redeem the promise 
of its platform. 

THE DEMOCRATIC REMEDY. 

One of the stock arguments of our 
democratic friends against the protec- 
tive tariff for years past is that it fos- 
ters monopolies. It was quite to be 
expected, therefore, that as the prob- 
lem of the trusts forces itself more 



QITESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



23 



sharply upou the public attention, the 
democratic party should grow more in- 
sistent upon this argument, and offer 
free trade as a remedy for the evils of 
the trusts. 

The theory of protectionists always 
has been that the tendency of a pro- 
tective tariff to raise prices would be 
counteracted in a country as large and 
enterprising as ours, by competition 
among our own manufacturers and pro- 
ducers. The purpose of the combines 
is to .suppress that competition. And 
to the extent, in any given case, that 
the tariff protects the combine against 
foreign competition, it assists it in 
maintaining its prices against home 
competition. Intelligent and candid 
protectionists have always recognized 
the pertinence of this argument against 
their system for what it was worth. 
But it is worth very little. 

Suppose we should repeal all the pro- 
tective features of our present tariff' to- 
day; what v^ould happen to the trusts? 
Some of them would not be affected at 
all. All those who deal in commodities 
not subject to duty would feel no new- 
competition^ by reason of free trade. 
As to all tile others, they and all the 
rest of us would have to do business 
under new conditions. Our industries 
would have to hold their ground against 
foreign competition, or shut up. We 
know what the latter alternative means" 
from sad and recent experience. It is 
only nine years since the land was 
filled Avith smokeless chimneys, stand- 
ing like monuments in graveyards of 
industry. Such a condition, of course, 
would not continue permanently. Forty 
years of effective protection, save only 
the life of the Wilson tariff, have cre- 
ated in this country such taste, apti- 
tude and capacity for varied industrial 
pursuits that no competition can ex- 
tinguish the industries. They may be 
paralyzed for a time, but they will re- 
vive again, no matter what happens. 
It might be— it would be upou such re- 
adjustment of wages and prices as 
Avould compel the American working 
man to meet the competition of work- 



ing men in like occupations round the 
world; but the industries would go on. 
on some basis. And whatever that 
might be— whether free trade outright, 
or half way free trade, the great com- 
binations would still have the same 
relative advantage over the little con- 
cerns that they have now. Trusts 
flourish most under conditions of gen- 
eral prosperity. Possibly we might be 
able, by free trade, to produce such 
conditions of poverty in this country 
that the trusts would starve outj but I 
doubt it. They would be relatively un- 
prosperous under conditions of general 
distress. But under all conditions they 
would still maintain the same advant- 
age over their little competitors, and 
the same power over the community. 
The Standard Oil, and the Sugar Trust, 
and the Beef Combine, and scores of 
others, managed to weather the hard 
times of "93. ^ Do we want to make 
times harder than they were then? 
Considering the unspeakable value of 
the protective system to this country, 
the good that it has done us, and is 
doing us to-day, I should say that a re- 
publican v,'ho would consider for a 
moment the proposition to try to kill 
the trusts with free trade must have 
gone trust mad. To cut off your nose 
to spite your face is an old illustration 
of foolishness; this would be to cut off 
your nose to spite another man's face. 
It will be said that no one proposes 
so extreme a measure as the entire 
abolition of protection, that it is only 
proposed to abolish the tariff on trust- 
made products. How^ shall we define 
and limit the term? A few trusts con- 
trol the whole production in their de- 
partments respectively; but most of 
them only a greater or less portion of 
it;. I believe that the Rubber trust, 
for example, controls the entire out- 
put; the Sugar trust about 75 per cent; 
the Steel trust about 60 per cent, and 
so on down. Where would we draw 
the line? Would we class as trust- 
made goods all goods of which any 
considerable part is made by one big 
corporation, and abolish the tariff on 



24 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



those goods? Of course the law would 
operate on all manufacturers alike — 
the big corporation and all its little 
competitors. It would be an indiscrim- 
inate vengeance that would destroy 
forty innocent men, doing 40 per cent 
of the business, in order to punish 
one guilty big concern doing 60 per 
cent of the business. 

On the other hand, if we apply the 
free trade remedy only to monopolies 
in the strict sense, that is, to combines 
that monopolize the whole business in 
their respective departments, it will 
hit so few that it will amount to noth- 
ing as a remedy. I am not sure, in- 
deed, that it would hit anybody. Even 
in those lines in which the monopoly 
seems most complete, such as rubber 
goods, matches, pins, etc., there may 
be some concerns in the business out- 
side the one big one. 

As a remedy for the evils of the 
trusts the proposition to repeal the 
tariff on trust-made goods may be 
classed with free silver and fiat money. 
It is an impracticable, absurd and dan- 
gerous scheme. It will fit the views 
of a populist for that very reason. It 
svill fit the views of an out and out 
free trader because he is for free trade 
any way, without reference to its ef- 
fect upon the trusts. But no man who 
believes in the theory of protection at 
all, or values the stability of present 
business conditions and realizes the ef- 
fect which would be produced on the 
couijtry by such tariff changes as 
would 'affect the trusts in any substan- 
tial degree, can possibly give it any 
countenance whatever. 

THE DISCUSSION OPENED. 

The President's speeches have had 
already one good effect, which, I sup- 
pose, he intended and desired— they 
have provoked criticism and discus- 
sion; especially his suggestion that 
complete control of the trusts is not 
attainable without an amendment of 
the constitution conferring that power 
upon Congress. We have been told by 
high authority that such a proposition 



is "absurd," "preposterous." "impossi- 
ble." It has been pointed out that 
such an amendment can be adopted 
only by a resolution passed by a two- 
thirds vote in each branch of Congress, 
ratified by the legislatures of three- 
fourths of the states; as though the 
President did not know that when he 
made the suggestion. Such an amend- 
ment is not impossible in a legal sense. 
We have added fifteen amendments to 
the constitution since its adoption. It 
would not take long if we were of one 
mind about it. Congress will be in ses- 
sion sixty days hence. The legislatures 
of all, or nearly all, the states meet 
this wintei". The amendment could be 
in force by next "ground hog day" if 
the people were unanimously demand- 
ing it. 

On the other hand, if the matter is 
as important as many of us think, if it 
may involve the perpetuity of oiir in- 
stitutions, if it is that or socialism, 
fifty years will be well spent in secur- 
ing the amendment. On Jan. 1, 1831, 
a paper appeared in 'Boston containing 
this announcement by the editor: "I 
am in earnest— I will not equivocate — 
I will not excuse— I will not retreat a 
single inch— and I will be heard." The 
paper was the "Liberator;" the editor, 
William Lloyd Garrison. The anti- 
slavery movement had begun. Thirty- 
-four years later the thirteenth amend- 
ment of the constitution, prohibiting 
slavery in the United States, was 
adopted. 

The fight for honest money, and the 
honest discharge of public obligations 
in this country, began in 1868. It end- 
ed thirty years later by the passage of 
the Act of March 4, lidOQ, The proba- 
bility or improbability that this Con- 
gress or the next, or the next, will 
adopt such a resolution, or that three- 
fourths of the states will ratify it two 
years hence or twenty years hence is 
not a thing to be considered. If the 
domination of the trusts is believed to 
be incompatible with liberty, and if it 
is believed that the prevention of that 
domination is possible only by art 



QUESTIONS OK THE HOUR 



rtinendmeut of the constitution, then 
every citizen who so believes ought to 
work for that amendment while he 
lives; and dying, bequeath the same 
patriotic duty to his heirs and their 
heirs until the work shall have been 
accomplished. 

This does not mean that we shall omit 
to use such constitutional power as we 
have in the meantime. No doubt Con- 
gress has power to pass a better law 
than the present one; and it ought to do 
it without delay. The field of state leg- 
islation should not be neglected. And 
all laws, state and national, should be 
vigorously, fearlessly and strictly en- 
forced. 

TAI^IFP CHANGES. 

Protectionists have always argued 
that the effect of protection would be 
to develop industrial aptitude and skill 
in oin- own people. It takes time to ac- 
complish that result. The most skillful 
citizens in every craft are those who 
have grown up in it, and whose fathers 
followed it before them. Moreover, it 
is necessary, in order to build up na- 
tional industries, to develop employers 
as well as employes, to familiarize the 
owners of capital with the business of 
manufacture, to inspire in them confi- 
dence and courage to undertake indus- 
trial enterprises, and teach them skill in 
their management. Our arguments and 
predictions have been singularly con- 
firmed. Never before in the world has 
any economic theory been more com- 
pletely justified than has been the theory 
of protection in the history of our coun- 
try. 

That theory implies that there should 
come a time when that result of the 
protective tariff will have worked itself 
out. Obviously that will require much 
longer time in some departments of in- 
dustry than in others; l)ut it will come 
at last in all of them, else our argu- 
ments have been unsound. They have 
not been unsound; and that precise re- 
sult is in progress of realization, and 
has been realized in some departments. 



In the manufacture of iron and steel, 
for example, our skilled workmen long 
ago overtook and passed those of the 
old world. In the manufacture of plain 
glass and pottery, ordinary boots and 
shoes, plain clothes, agricultural imple- 
ments, engines, and many other things 
we have nothing to learn from abroad. 
In processes requiring the highest man- 
ual skill — in the manufacture of the 
finest porcelain, glassware, laces, vel- 
vets, and the like, we are probably still 
somewhat behind some others. 

Our other argument for the tariff has 
been that it is necessary to cover the 
difference between the wages paid here 
and those paid in competing countries 
for similar work. That is a valid argu- 
ment and as good to-day as it ever was. 
But there is one fact not to be ovei*- 
looked in that connection. It is the ex- 
tensive use which we make of labor 
saving machinery in manufacturing 
processes. In that respect we are mak- 
ing wonderful advances all the time. 
Every step in that advance lessens the 
labor cost of the product. It has thus 
come about that in many lines of man- 
ufacture we can pay much higher 
wages than our competitors and still 
produce the goods at less cost. 

FOREIGN TRADE. 

A nation cannot maintain a high tar- 
iff, high wages, and high prices at 
home, and be a successful competitor 
in the general markets of the world, 
except so far as it may be able to off- 
set this disadvantage by superiority 
in its goods, or sometliing of that sort. 
If it costs forty pounds of gold in 
labor and materials to build a locomo- 
tive engine in this country it cannot 
be sold in another country where the 
same engine can be built for thirty- 
five pounds of gold. 

Our democratic friends used to 
throw this argument at us. We were 
told that we must have free trade in 
order to reach the "markets of the 
world." Our answer was, that our 
own markets— our home market was 
a lietter thing for us than the mar- 
kets of the woT'ld; and that we could 



20 



QUESTIONS OP THE HOUR 



not afford to excbauge tlie certainty 
of that foi' au uncertain chance at the 
other; which was a perfectly sound 
argument. At the same time we were 
bound to admit that, so far as we 
could get access to foreign markets 
without giving up our own. it was to 
our interest to do so. It was to ac- 
complish this end that the policy of 
reciprocity was inaugurated. It will 
be but another application of the same 
principle to modify our tariff from 
time to time in its rates and schedules, 
as the conditions of business change, 
here and abroad. 

Let us take the iron and steel indus- 
try, for example. The maui expense 
in that manufacture is in handling the 
material. W& do that almost wholly 
by machinery, and on' an immense 
scale. Iron ore is now shipped from 
Lake Superior to Cleveland, and other 
Lake Erie ports, in vessels carrying 
live or six thousand tons. It is un- 
loaded by machines which take out a 
whole cargo in one day. The opera- 
tion of these machines is perfectly 
marvelous. The latest device out is 
an improved "grab bucket"— I should 
call it a steel hand— which will pick 
up a ton of coal or ore as easily as 
you can take a nickle out of your pock- 
et. The thing lights on the pile as 
easily as a bird, then wiggles and 
twists about to work its fingers in 
among the lumps, and then closes 
down on a ton or more of the stuff, 
picks it up and carries it away to a 
dock or car just as I would take a 
handful of beans out of a bag and put 
them in a pan. At the furnace the ore 
is dumped into a bin underneath au 
elevated track by slippiug a catch 
which lets the bottom of tlie car drop 
down by a hinge. A car load of ore 
is put in the bin while you take oft' 
your hat. At the loAver edge of the 
slanting bottom of the bin is a chute 
with a hinged door througb which the 
ore is discharged into a bucket hold- 
ing a ton, or as many tons as you like, 
which is then whirled up in a twink- 
ling to the top of tbe furnace and 



dumped in. And so it goes, until the 
white hot steel rail comes fi'om the 
rolls; and at the end of the process it 
can be said with almost literal truth 
that not a pound of its weight ever 
strained the muscles of a human back. 

It was by being shrewd to see and 
quick to take advantage of these labor- 
saving devices that Andrew Carnegie 
made his millions— selling iron for a 
dollar that cost him fifty cents. 

These improvements, together with 
our natural advantages in the supply of 
ore and fuel, have put us ahead of all 
the world in the production of iron 
and steel. That industry needs no fur- 
Iher protection. I am not talking now 
about cutlery, saws, and the thousand 
and one things that are made from iron 
and steel by the application of further 
labor and skill upon the material; but 
of iron and steel in their original or 
large, heavy form, such as pigs, ingots, 
hilicts. beams, bars, plates and the like. 

Plain cotton goods, such as muslin, 
print cloths, sheeting and duck, are 
now made by machinery from the 
picked cotton to the finished stuff. Pick- 
ing machines are coming before long. 
With the world's main supply grown in 
our fields, and coal under the fields to 
run the machines to make it up, there 
is no reason why we should not lead 
the world in plain cottons. No other 
staple has a wider or more enduring, or 
rapidly expanding market. Civilization 
begins with cotton clothes. The awak- 
ening of the Orient means a prodigious 
increase in the market for cottons. We 
ought to have the lion's share of it. It 
is now the British lion's. 

Close after the cotton cloth comes 
the sewing machine. I believe the 
business in this country is in the hands 
of a combination which exports ma- 
chines in lai'ge quantities and sells 
them abroad for less than they are sold 
here. The patent laws may aft'ord 
some justification of this. The funda- 
mental sewing machine patents expired 
long ago, and those inventions are now 
free to the public. But there are new 
patents being issued from time to time 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



27 



Avhich authorize the luaimfacturers to 
hold up prices on machiues containiug- 
those improvements. But good ma- 
chinos can be made without those im- 
provement's; and it may be if the sew- 
ing machine combine were not able to 
add to the protection afforded to it by 
the patent laws the additional protec- 
tion afforded by the tariff laws the peo- 
ple could obtain machines like the 
original Singer and Ho Ave for less price 
than th?y have to pay now. 

The democrats have been arguing for 
many years that the fact that Ameri- 
can made goods are sold abroad for less 
prices than at home is evidence that 
our tariff unjustly enhances home 
prices. But that does not always hold 
good. In the tirst place, as I have 
said, our patent laws give the pat- 
entee an absolute monopoly of his in- 
vention for seventeen years. He can 
do just as he pleases about prices. And 
that is a wise law, too. I belieye that 
the patent law is to be ranked with the 
protective tariff" in its beneficent effect 
upon the industries of this country. In 
the next place, it may very well be that 
a manufacturer, having supplied his 
home market with all that it Avill lake 
at his establish(=d price, can afford to 
export his unsold surplus at a price 
which would ruin him if it were applied 
to his whole output. The Pennsylva- 
nia Railroad can afford to take me to 
Chicago and back for a dollar as one 
of a trainload of excursionists; but it 
v.'ouid not keep its trains going long at 
that rate as a regular fare. 

It is necessary, therefore, to distin- 
guish betAveen cases. A sale abroad by 
a patentee of his patented article at 
less price than he exacts here signifies 
nothing. A sale by any manufacturer 
abroad at less than his American price 
of a mere small surplus signifies noth- 
ing. But Avhen a manufacturer, con- 
trolling the whole trade here, does a 
regular and large export trade in un- 
patented articles at prices below those 
obtained here, it is open to suspicion 
that he Is getting an unjust advantage 
from our tariff. 



In harmony with these views I 
should say that the duty ought to be 
removed entirely from iron and steel, 
and plain cotton goods, and that the 
duty on sewing machines ought to be 
looked into. In this I am saying noth- 
ing Avhich the truest protectionist may 
not say. I have been saying for thirty 
year.-; that this result would come— 
this development of American manu- 
facture. It has come. \Tlry does not 
my own logic compel me now to say 
that, the tariff on iron, steel and cotton 
goods having done its work, the duty 
ought to cease? 

I ought to add that I have selected 
these particular commodities as mere 
illustrations. I have stated Avhat I 
believe in regard to them. But I am 
not a tariff' expert, and I might be in 
error as to any particular article or 
sfliedule. Such an error "Avould not 
affect the validity of my argument. 

OUR platfor:m. 

When the republican national con- 
vention met in 1896, the Wilson tariff", 
enacted under President Cleveland's 
administration, three years before, Avas 
in force. 0\u- platform, denounced that 
tariff", and pledged the party to enact 
one more in harmony Avith the princi- 
ples of protection— a pledge which it 
promptly redeemed by the enactment 
of the Dingley tariff, noAV in force. 
The platform Avas good, the laAV Avas 
;j;ood, and the results have been good. 
But the platfoi'm contained this signifi- 
cant language. "We are not pledged 
to any particular schedules. The ques- 
tion of rates is a practical question to 
be governed by the conditions of time 
and of production.'" 

Those republicans Avho believe that 
the present time and the present con- 
ditions demand some changes of rates, 
or even abolition of duties not required 
for fair protection of American indus- 
try, are within the liberty reserved to 
them by their party's platform. 

I do not hesitate to say that I think 
that Congress ought to consider the 
subject at its next session.' I think— 



28 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUll 



althoiigli I repeat my reservation thai 
I am not very wise on the subject- 
that it ought to repeal the duty on 
iron and steel, and plain cottons at 
once, and perhaps on some other arti- 
cles to which the same reasons for 
repeal apply. Then it ought to appoint 
a Commission or a committee to go 
over the whole field and report at the 
beginning of the next Congress. This 
would not mean an abandonment of 
the principles of protection, but a con- 
sistent adherence to them. It would 
be to prune the system of provisions 
which have become inconsistent with 
those principles by reason of changes 
in business and economical conditions 
which have taken place. 

Of course there Avill be an outcry 
against any proceedings of that kind. 
One of the difficulties against which 
the friends of protection have to con- 
tend is the disposition of great inter- 
ests which are benefited by it to resist 
changes which the public welfare de- 
mands. That is part of the price 
which Ave have to pay for the bless- 
ings of the system. It is our business 
to see that the wishes of those men 
shall not receive undue consideration. 

It will be feared by some that the 
very agitation of the question will dis- 
turb business. I do not think so. The 
people know that the republican party 
is devoted to the principles of protec- 
tion and will make no change in the 
tariff which will violate those princi- 
ples. A revision of the tariff by a 
democratic Congress would be a very 
different thing. It would be on differ- 
ent pi'inciples and on different lines. 
The business of the country might 
well take alarm at that pi'ospect. 

One of our stock arguments against 
the democratic slogan, "tariff reform," 
has been that the tariff should be re- 
formed by its friends, and not by Its 
enemies, which is good and true. But 
what if its friends will not reform it 
when it needs reform? 

There is an unrest in the public mind 
on this subject which we ought not to 
ignore. I think it proceeds mainly 
from irritation at the growing power 



of the trusts. The people are earnestly 
looking for some way to curb that pow- 
er. Inasmuch as those trusts which deal 
in things protected by the tariff enjoy 
the benefit of that protection, it is easy 
to fall in with the suggestion that the 
quickest way to cripple them is to re- 
peal the tariff on the things which they 
produce. Our first duty is to correct 
this error, to show the people that it i.s 
impossible to extinguish the trusts in 
that way, or even to hurt them without 
hurting ourselves more; then demon- 
strate our sincerity by turning our at- 
tention to the subject of regulating the 
trusts by law in the most effective man- 
ner possible, and in like manner taking 
up the tariff for separate consideration 
with a view to the correction of any in- 
equalities or injiistices M'hich are in it. 
either of original imperfection or sub- 
sequent development. 

There has been a great change in in- 
dustrial and commercial conditions 
since the enactment of the Dingley tar- 
iff'. Continual improvements in machin- 
ery have reduced the labor cost in many 
departments of industry. The world's 
markets have widened. Our relations 
to them have changed. We are reach- 
ing out for a larger share in interna- 
tional commerce. We must have it in 
order to find room for the activities of 
our people. These are the "conditions"' 
referred to in our platform. They de- 
mand our attention and our study. 

CUBAN RECIPROCITY. 

I believe that our honor and our inter- 
est alike require that we shall deal lib- 
erally with Cuba in the matter of trade 
relations. I would go to the length of 
free trade. I would take Cuba into the 
Union at once as respects commercial 
riglats and privileges, requiring her to 
maintain as against the rest of the 
world a tariff substantially identical 
with ours. This would give her all the 
commercial advantages of a State of 
the Union. It would give to American 
capital the opportiuiity for safe invest- 
ment in Cuba. It would give to Cuba 
an opportunity to work out her owu 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



29 



destinj- under the most favorable condi- 
tions possible^ 

WOULD BENEFIT tJS. 

Such an arrangement would promote 
that interchange of commodities which 
nature has ordained and which is bene- 
ficial to both parties — the interchange 
of productions between widely separ- 
ated latitudes. We enjoy that advan- 
tage now in high degree. The wheat of 
the north and the sugar of the south; 
the wool of the north and the cotton of 
the south; the apples of the north and 
the oranges of the south are all freely 
interchanged among us. The addition of 
Cuba to the circle vv'ould give an en- 
larged market for wheat, corn, flour, 
pork and manufacttired goods, and an 
enlarged supply of sugar, rice, tobacco, 
and tropical fruits. 

PREVENTION OF ANNEXATION. 

But the main element of advantage 
to us would be that it would enable 
Cuba to maintain her independence. 
The two great forces that affect public 
affairs are political considerations and 
commercial considerations. I think it 
may be assumed that the political 
forces in Cuba will favor her inde- 
pendence. The natural pride of her 
people, the instinct of nationality, the 
ambition of her politicians will all tend 
in that direction. But if she falls into 
a condition of commercial distress, and 
there is no relief in sight except an- 
nexation, she will be clamoring at our 
door for admission; and she will get in, 
—woe to us. 

I think it will be an unfortunate day 
for us when we admit Cuba into the 
Union. The strength of a free gov- 
ernment is in the average intelligence 
of its people. Ours is none too high. 
The admission of Cuba would lower it. 
In dealing with the hard questions that 
will tax our powers for the next half 
century— taxation, tariff, trusts, labor, 
money, municipal ownership and oth- 
ers that we know not of, which the 
swift changes of modern life are sure 



to develop, Cuba could render us no 
assistance — she- would be a load to 
carry. 

There is such a thing as genius for 
self-government. It is a racial instinct. 
The Anglo-Saxon race possesses it; th^ 
Latin race does not. The instinct of 
that race is to follow a leader. Our 
South American sister republics are 
torn to pieces by frequent revolutions 
because their people are compelled by 
their natural instincts to follow leader- 
ship, and are continually being led into 
strife by ambitious leaders. 

WAR WITH MEXICO. 

That is not the worst of it. While 
Cuba would be a burden to us in the 
conduct of our government it would 
be a burden that we could carry if we 
had to. But the admission of Cuba 
would be the first of nobody knows 
hoAv many more additions to our circle 
of the same sort of undesirable states. 
I should look for them first from the 
toi'ritory of Mexico. There has been 
a great influx of capital and enterprise 
inio Mexico from the United States, 
a lid it is going on at an increasing rate. 
Mexico has been highly prosperous for 
a number of years because she has had 
a strong leader in command. But the 
chances are that when President Diaz 
dies there will be a scramble for the 
succession among rival leaders that 
will precipitate a revolution. When 
that comes American interests in Mex- 
ico will suffer; we shall intervene for 
their protection; and war and conquest 
will be the natural result. 

We are cultivating the war spirit 
with our growing navy and our land 
and naval maneuvers and mimic bat- 
tles. I do not agree with the views 
expressed by the President in his late 
tour, nor with the policy of the ad- 
ministration and its predecessors for 
tei- years back, on this subject. The 
burdens which the world carries in its 
military and naval establishments are 
enormous. The only road to universal 
peace is universal disarmament. We 



'M 



(»l KSjlC.N.S Oi' THE HOlTt 



could do iDore to bring- tbat about than 
aii.v (jthor or all otbor -uations put to- 
i>< tlier. We are the one great nation 
that could dare to set the example. If 
v/e would set oursels'es about it by 
argument, protestation and example, 
we could disarm Eui'ope and secure 
the establishment of an international 
couit in fifty years. What we are do- 
ing will make disarmament impossi- 
ble. The world is grooving afrrdd of 
us. Every Avarship Ave build contrib- 
utes to the building of three others 
elseAvhere. The Peace Congress at. the 
Hague has turned out to be the empti- 
est mockery of all time, and Ave have 
done nioi'e to make it so than any other 
nation. 

The maxim that the best security of 
peace is to be prepared for Avar is true 
in a certain brutal sense. It is true 
among dogs, bulls and bruisers. It is 
also true that the men Avho practice box- 
ing and carry pistols are the men Avho 
get into roAvs and commit homicides. 
If Ave had no navy there never would 
be any Avar betAveen us and England or 
any European nation. We might have 
to submit to some indignities, as all 
teachers of righteousness do, but they 
would not be serious, and a persistent 
refusal on our part to make war, or 
threaten war, or prepare for war, and 
a persistent insistance by us upon the 
establishment of international courts 
and international laAVS for the settle- 
ment of international disputes, and a 
ready and loyal submission by us to 
the decisions of such courts would com- 
pel the respect of mankind and tend 
mightily to bring about the reign of 
laAV among the nations as it reigns 
among the people of the nations. 

But then— Avbat's the use? So far as 
I know, 1 am the only person in the 
United Staies who holds tlic:-e views. 
outside of the Friend's Sociity hvjI the 
Dunkards— certainly the only republi- 
can speaker who expresses tliem; and, 
grand aud inspiring as they are to me, 
they count for nothing. We have set 
out upon the other course. It is to be 
our mission to scare the AA'orld into 



peace and good behavior by our mani- 
fest ability to punish oITenders. We 
can do that, too, to better effect than 
any other nation; aud if we Avill be the 
considerate and kind policeman, as 
Avell as tlie big one, we may not need 
to use our club very often. 

It is idle, however, to suppose that 
there Avill not be occasions for Avar, 
and it is certain that we.are c\iltiyat- 
ing tha martial spirit that leads to Avar 
on" small provocations; and that we 
shall haA'e more Avars and make more 
conquests is a probability which, it 
seems to me, no thoughtful man can 
overlook. And if Ave take Cuba into 
the Union, Avhy not Mexico, Central 
America, and all South America, Avhen 
the time comes? 

I am so impressed Avith the import- 
ance of these considerations that I Avish 
there could be an amendment added 
to our constitution to the elfect that 
for a hundred years no state shall be 
admitted to the Union from any ter- 
ritory off the mainland of North Amer- 
ica,' or south of our present southern 
boundary. We can govern outside ter- 
ritory, if need be; but Ave .need no out- 
side help in governing ourselves. 

All this has to do AviUi Cuban reci- 
procity. Let us put her on a footing 
of free commercial relationship Avith 
the United States and she avIU prefer 
independence; and Ave shall thus be 
saved from an unwise departure Avhich 
may implant tendencies in our govern- 
ment to bring us infinite trouble in the 
future. 

REET SUGAR. 

There is one feature of the business 
Avhich is distressing to me. I refer to 
the effect of the fi"ee admission of Cu- 
ban sugar upon our oaa'u sugar indus- 
try. Our cane sugar industry is not, 
and never Avas logically Avithin the 
protective principle, because it is in- 
capable of groAvth beyond the supply 
of more than a small part of our Avauts. 
Our cane groAving lands are confined 
substantially to the southern half of 
Louisiana. That state produced last 



QUESTIONS Ol^' 'J'HE liOUK 



81 



J'ear 270,000 tons of sugar, while our 
total consumption was 2,100,000 tons. 
Its production might be increased 
somewhat, but at the best it could fur- 
nish only a small part of the amount 
required for our use. At the same 
time, I have been satisfied to protect 
cane sugar. The Louisianlans are our 
brethren; their soil and climate are 
such that thej^ could not find anything 
else equally profitable to substitute 
for their sugar industry; the freedmen 
who do the work are entitled for many 
reasons to our peculiar consideration, 
and a- sugar duty combines with its 
protective effect a good form of reve- 
nue duty, if reasonable in amount. 
These facts taken together would jus- 
tify a duty on sugar even though there 
AA-ere no beet sugar production in ex- 
istence, or possible. 

The beet sugar industry stands ou 
different ground. It is the child of 
protection. It has in it possibilities of 
indefinite growth. We have watched 
its beginning with large expectations. 
It will be a grief to see it perish, if 
that must be, as a result of Cuban 
reciprocity. I do not know that that 
will be the case. As I have said, cur 
annual consumption is about 2,100,000 
tons, which will increase v>ith increase 
of population and prosperity, and de- 
crease in price. The largest crop here- 
tofore produced in Cuba was 000,000 
tons. Add to that Louisiana, 270,000 
tons; Hawaii, 312,000; Porto Rico, 85,- 
000, and we have a total of 1,267,0(X) 
tons of free cane sugar. 

If we add to this our present produc- 
tion of beet sugar, which I take at 
100,000 tons, we shall have a total an- 
nual supply of l,3i^7,000 tons paying no 
duty. It would be necessary in that 
case to import 793,000 tons subject to 
duty to make up our required supply. 
The probable etiect of such conditions 
would be to lower the price of sugar 
below the present rate, but not to a 
free trade rate. 

But all such calculations as these are 
very uncertain. I do not know how 
much the stimulus of a profitable mar- 



ket would increase production in Cuba 
and Porto Rico; and the Philippine Isl- 
ands are an unknown factor. I feel 
bound to consider the question as 
though Cuban reciprocity would break 
down our sugar industry iu its in- 
fancy; and this is to me a distressing 
tiling to contemplate. 

But there are two things to be re- 
membered. The first is, that Cuban 
sugar is bound to come, duty free, be- 
fore long, if we refuse to admit it now, 
anyway. If we do not admit it from 
the Republic of Cuba, we will from 
the State of Cuba, and that very soon. 
We shall only make a virtue of neces- 
sity by admitting it now. 

The other is, that there is a point of 
honor involved which transcends every 
commercial consideration. When Pres- 
ident McKiuley asked the Cuban rep- 
resentatives to agree to the terms of 
the Piatt resolution by which ^he Cu- 
ban republic was to make concessions 
to us of great value, he did not 
promise reciprocity. He ha l no 
power to bind the United States by 
his promise, and was careful not to 
put it in that way. But he did say 
that he would "use his influence'' to 
briui.g it about. The Cubans trusted 
that assurance, and agreed to the 
terms of the Piatt resolution. William 
McKinley is dead, but his influence 
still reaches me. No obligation ever 
touched me more closely than that 
which binds me to carry out in letter 
and spirit the intent of his assurance. 
I do not see how any republican can 
feel otherwise. 

Free Cuban sugar is another inevita- 
ble consequence of our war against 
Spain which we did not foresee at the 
time, like to that which confronts us 
in the Philippine Islands. We must 
face them both like men. 

THE LABOR QUESTION. 
Never before has the labor problem 
been presented in this counti'y in a 
form to bring out the real question— 
the hard question which it contains, so 
clearly as it has been disclosed iu the 



32 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



case of the antliracite coal stx'ike. Tlie 
meeting called by the President and 
held in his presence between the repre- 
sentatives of the mine owners and the 
miners was an historic event. The 
newspapers are with one accord berat- 
ing the railroad presidents as though 
they were monsters of inhumanity. 
And yet not one of them has answered, 
or attempted to answer, or can answer 
the position of the owners. They sim- 
ply said to the President "Protect us 
in the operation of the mines and we 
will fui-nish the coal; there are miners 
enough who desire to woi"li and whom 
we desire to employ; but they are not 
allowed to work by the striking 
miners." 

I think they had the President in a 
corner. What answer could he make? 
This is supposed to be a laud Avhere 
law is supreme; and he is the highest 
executive officer in the government. 
It is his sworn duty to execute the 
laws. What could he say to men who 
had broken no law, and who were 
avowing their readiness to supply the 
public with coal as soon as they were 
protected from unlawful interference 
Avith their businesis? 

They went further than that. They 
offered to submit to arbitration before 
the judges of the courts any claims of 
the minei's for higher wages, such ar- 
bitration to be between the owners and 
the miners directly, and not the union. 
Now who will be to blame if women 
and children freeze for want of coal? 
The miners. Who alone can get it out 
of the ground? The miners. Who is 
preventing it from being taken out of 
the ground? The miners. It is not a 
question of wages. The ownei's have 
offered in writing to submit that ques- 
tion to arbitration in a perfectly fair 
way. The judges of the courts know 
how to hear evidence and make just 
decisions. And in the meantime the 
work of mining coal can go on. • 

But the miners will have none of that. 
The owners must treat with the union, 
employ none but union men and obey 
the rules and regulations of the union. 



That is the issue which the miners ten- 
der. 

The newspapers curse the mine own- 
ers, and for what, when we get to the 
bottom of it? Because they will not 
hand the control of their business over 
to John Mitchell. They talk of seizing 
the mines under the power of eminent 
domain, taking them out of the hands 
of the owners and operating them by 
the government; or of appointing re- 
ceivers and running them by the court. 
For what reason? Because the owners 
do not furnish coal? But the owners 
are willing to furnish coal; they are not 
doing it because the miners will not 
mine it and will not allow any one else 
to mine it. 

THE ISSUE. 

This makes absolutely clear the other 
of the two most momentous issues ever 
tendered to the people of this countrj' — 
the control of all labor by unions. If 
we could be admitted to the consulta- 
tions of the labor leaders behind closed 
doors, we would learn that they are 
conducting a systematic plan of cam- 
paign for the subjugation of employers. 
They propose to compel every working- 
man to take his place in his appropri- 
ate union, and to compel all employers 
to recognize the unions, and deal with 
them upon all questions of wages and 
other conditions of employment. When 
everything is unionized what will em- 
ployers be but servants of the unions? 
That work is far toward completion in 
Chicago. It is said that there are 525 
labor unions in that city, with an aggre- 
gate membership of 800,000, embracing 
85 per cent, of all who work for wages. 

The anthracite coal strike is a great 
strategic movement in the general 
campaign — a sort of Sherman's march 
to the sea. The employers form the 
most odious combination in the coun- 
try. We all hate them. We instinctive- 
ly sympathize with the miners. Their 
lot is a hard one. Every kind hearted 
man would like to see them succeed in 
this contest. The unions have never 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



mght a fight under more favorable 

inditions. 

On tlie otlier liand, the owners are 

uhting for then- lives. Are they to be 
■ wners of the mines, or mere agents for 
the United INIine Workers? That same 
(juestion confronts employers evei'y- 
where to-day, only not in such acute 
lorni. 

THE OTHER SIDE. 

This is a true statement of the case 
and the issue. And yet it has another 
side. In the anthracite coal mines a 
few men control the employment of a 
Inmdred and fifty thousand minex'S. 
They have fox-med a combination so 
close that it might as well be one man. 
If each individual miner had to act by 
himself — malie his own application for 
employment, his own bax-gain for 
wages and houx's, and keep his place 
;it the xuere will of the employer, he 
would be practically a slave. He would 
' be compelled to take the terms offered 
i — assuxning that he had no resources 
I for a livelihood except mixxixig. What is 
true of the miner is true of workingmen 
gexierally. The conditions of modern 
life compel more and more of us to seek 
employment — to live on wages. At the 
same time, the employing, wage-paying 
power is concentrated in fewer and 
fewer hands. 

IN UNION IS STRENGTH. 

The workingman can escape from 
the helplessness of his individual 
weakness only by organization. Good 
people see this and applaud it every- 
where; and yet seem to be as blind to 
the inevitable consequences of such 
organization as we all were to the in- 
evitable consequences of the war 
against Spain when we went into it. 
The object of the union is to put its 
members upon some footing of equality 
with their employer in making terms. 
But if he will not listen to reason or 
persuasion, what then? The strike. 
It was an idle thing to organize the 
union if it can do nothing but submit. 



After the strike what? It is idle to 
strike and let other men take the 
places. They must be kept out. If 
persuasion and argument again fail, 
then what? Force. How much force? 
All that is uecessax'y to win. This is 
war. The anthracite mines ax"e in a 
state of siege. 

If the anthracite miners had cap- 
tured all the dix'ectors of the coal I'oads 
and mining companies and carx'ied 
them off to the xnoxxntains, to be held 
as hostages, as INIiss Stone was held 
by the brigands, until they agreed to 
recognize the union and acquiesce in 
its demands, what an outcx-y thex-e 
would have been over the whole wox-ld. 
And yet it would not have been a whit 
different in principle froxji the present 
px'oceedings, and it woixld have been 
mvxch less inconvenient to the x-est of 
us. We would not miss the society of 
the dix'ectors neax'ly as much as we 
may miss the coal in their mines. The 
essential object of a stx'ike is to com- 
pel the employer to do something 
against his will, and to compel it by 
pxxnishment— by the infliction of injury. 
The kind of punishment is not materi- 
al to the principle involved. 

WHY DO WE TOLERATE IT ? 

Society not only tolerates this condi- 
tion of war in its midst, but approves 
and encourages it until the inconven- 
ience becomes unbearable; and then it 
visits its maledictions, not on the 
strikers who made the war and broke 
the peace by lawless measures, but on 
the employer who is mex-ely defending 
himself against attack. Why is this? 

There is a universal law, above all 
other laws, the world around. It is 
the law of self preservation. The com- 
mon law of England and our country 
recognizes this law to the extent that 
a man who is menaced in person or 
property of himself or faxuily under 
circumstances in which the law will 
not, or cannot protect him, may pro- 
tect himself— to the death, if necessary. 
That is the situation of the working- 



t. Of 9 



34 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



men of this country. The industrial 
changes which are going on are threat- 
ening to reduce them to slavery. The 
law does not protect them. It protects 
tlie employers in their ownership, their 
iucorponitions, their consolidations and 
combinations, but it leaves the indi- 
vidual workingman to make his fight 
alone. The union is his only salvation. 
And the union is of no avail unless it 
will fight; and it is foolish to fight un- 
less you fight to win. Society, in a 
dim, unconscious way, recognizes this 
situation, and approves the warfare of 
the union, without distinctly perceiv- 
ing why. 

THE WAR MUST GO ON. 

The battle the workingmen are fight- 
ing is not for themselves alone; it is 
for us all. It is for the independence, 
the comfort, the education, the eleva- 
tion, the manhood of American citi- 
/-c-nship. It must go on until the law 
is able lo deal with the labor question 
iu a way to do justice to all. Until 
then the only thing the unions can do 
is to bear and forbear when they can, 
and fight when they must. I believe 
the anthracite coal strike was a justifi- 
able one, and that there is nothing to 
be said in criticism of the strikers, and 
will not be if they keep it up unril next 
spring. Society deserves punishment 
for its neglect of this great question. 
It can be stirred to action only l)y pun- 
ishment. I believe we shall have it iu 
abundance before we are whipped to 
our duty. We shall have mobs, riots, 
conflagrations, slaughter— war in all its 
hideous forms; and all for our own 
blindness and selfishness and stupidity 
in not perceiving the drift of the times 
and the necessity of keeping pace in 
tlie law with the progress of society. 

We are a much beleaguered people. 
With the trusts reaching out for the 
control of all manufacture, trade and 
pi-ices, and the unions marching on to 
the control of all labor, what is to be 
the fate of society? Are we to become 
the slaves of two great despotisms? 
Things tend that way. 



■ THE REMEDIKS. 

Again the word comes back to me, as 
to every man who opens his mouth to 
speak on a question like this, "Have 
you anything to suggest? If not, keep 
still." Yes, I have— a little. 

The time has not come for the laws 
which the conditions will finally re- 
quire. Those laws will impose on em- 
ployers a lar'ge surrender of theii 
I'ig'hts, as they now regard them, and 
they will impose on the unions and 
their members restrictions to which 
they would, at present, be very unwill- 
ing to submit. It will take many and 
dreadful punishments to bring us to 
the point where the legislation will be 
possible. The employers will suffer all 
tlie plagues of Egypt, and the work- 
ingmen will wander forty years in the 
wilderness before we siee the promised 
land. 

One of the indispensable laws will 
be one requiring the unions to organ- 
ize in some form in which they can be 
held to legal responsibility for their 
contracts and conduct. Possibly such 
a law could be passed now in some 
states, but I think the unions would 
oppose it everywhere. 

COURTS OF INVESTIGATION AND CEN- 
SURE. 

There is a line along which, as it 
seems to me, useful legislation is pos- 
sible now, which would help in the 
solution of the problem and ameliorate 
conditions somewhat in the meantime. 
We could easily provide in every state 
a tribunal with the compulsory pow- 
ers of a court whose duty it would be, 
upon the appearance of any serious 
labor ditticulty. to call the parties be- 
fore it and compel them to show cause 
why they were disturbing the general 
peace by their fight. It should have 
power to compel the attendance of wit- 
uesso.-; and the production of books and 
papers. It should make an adjudica- 
tion upon the merits of the contro- 
versy. I would not confer upon such a 
court at present any power to punisli 



QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR 



35 



except by ceusure. I think that woulil 
suffice in most eases. 

If tliere had been such a court in 
Pennsylvania, it would have been its 
duty to investigate the coal strike five 
months ago; to go thoroughly into 
every matter of wages, hours, prices, 
profits, and everything else that affects 
the question of right between the mine 
owners and the miners. If it had 
found the wages inadequate or the 
conditions of labor oppressive it would 
have been its duty to say so, and state 
what concessions the employer ought 
to make to their employees in these 
respects, 

I believe that such a finding would 
be practically compulsory upon em- 
ployers. When summoned before the 
court in such a proceeding they would 
bring their lawyers. They would be 
compelled to make a showing iu the 
nature of a defense of their conduct. 
They would have had their day in 
court— a chance to be heard on every 
point. The whole force of public opin- 
ion would be behind the court, and 
Avould be well nigh irresistible, al- 
thcrugh the coui-t would do nothing ana 
could do nothing but censure the party 
in the Avrong. 

If such a court had found in the 
present strike that the demand of the 
miners for the recognition of the union 
Avas one which they ought not to insist 
on, in view of the injury acrruing to 
the public, they would have given that 
point up. 

I think they will do so yet, and that 
when they do it will be iu consequence 
of the meeting before the President. 
Up to the time of that meeting the 
owners had had but two words for the 
miners and the public— "unconditional 
surrender." But when they founa 
themselves before the President and at 
the focal point of the burniug glass of 
public opinion, they yielded, and of- 
fered to arbitrate the question of 
wages. Mitchell held out for recogni- 
tion of himself and his unions; but I 
shall be disappointed if he does not 
give in on that point, and let the men 



go back on terms of wages to be fixed 
by arbitration. 

THE INDIANA LAW. 

We have a law iu our state somewhat 
like this. Our labor commissioners are 
required to investigate every stubborn 
strike which the parties will not set- 
tle nor arbitrate, and report the facts 
to the Governor; and he is authorized 
to give them to the press. I do not 
know that this provision of the law- 
has ever been acted on by the commis- 
sioners, but they have been instru- 
mental iu settling many strikes; and 
how far the knowledge of the fact that 
the issue might be compulsorily inves- 
tigated has influenced contestants to 
come to terms, no one can tell. I 
should think it an improvement to call 
the tribunal a court, and give it all 
the powers of a couit up to the point 
of pronouncing judgment, and at that 
point limit its power to one of censure. 
xin economical way to constitute the 
court would be to authorize the Gov- 
ernor to designate a judge or judges 
for each case as it arises from among 
the judges in office at the time. 

THE CRISIS. 
The people Avill not wait on the re- 
publican party much longei-. It is 
charged by its op«poneuts with sub- 
serviency to the trusts. Its conduct 
gives color to the charge. There is 
nothing in the recent past to indicate 
that our senators and representatives 
have had or have any wish or purpose 
to pass any laws that will inconven- 
ience the trusts. I have seen some cam- 
paign documents containing elaborate 
comparisons between the records of the 
democratic and republican parties in 
the matter of anti-trust legislation; 
very much to the advantage, of course, 
and truly, of the republican party. I 
think it would have been just as well 
to omit that. The Pharisee who thank- 
ed God that he Avas not as other men 
may have spoken the truth. He cer- 
tainly had reason for thankfulness if 
the "other men" were democrats of the 
present standard of weight and fine- 



3G 



■QUESTlUisS OF THE IIOUK 



ness. But he never got much 
credit for his prayer, either iu 
Heaven or history. For the salve of 
other great issues the people have 
borne with the delinquency of the re- 
publican party on the trust question. 
But that forbearance will find its limit; 
and unless we attack the question with 
manifest earnestness and sincerity of 
purpose the people will let out the job 
to the democratic party. 

Can anybody measure the disaster of 
such an event? Not that the repub- 
lican party ought to have perpetual 
tenure of powei'. It ought not. It is 
a calamity that there is but one party 
fit to run the government. But that 
is our unfortunate situation. I do not 
know how to truly describe the demo- 
cratic party in the kind language which 
I habitually employ. It is in a state of 
utter demoralization. Its seduction by 
William J. Bryan seems to have im- 
planted in its system an incurable dis- 
ease. It contains millions of good and 
true men. It contains, in its nominal 
membership, able men, great statesmen 
—men competent to deal wisely with 
public questions; but they are sitting 
on the back seats; they have no effec- 
tive influence in shaping the policy of 
the party. To put the democratic par- 
ty in power at this time AVOAild be to 
take risks impossible to measure. 

It Avould be particularly incapable of 
dealing with the trust question. Its 
instincts wou*d lead it to violent and 
reactionary measures; to make war on 
capital; to demolish the great combi- 
nations; to try to force society back to 
the conditions of a hundred years a^o. 
At the same time it would be intuitive- 
ly opposed to the one step necessary to 
make any effective anti-trust legisla- 
tion possible, which is an amendment 
of the constitution giving Congress 
power to regulate and control all cor- 
porations. It has yet sticking in its 
bones enough of its old, ante bcllum 
states' rights theories to set it against 
any such increase in the power of the 
United States government. It is by 
and through the republican party, an<5 



that party alone, that any useful legis- 
lation on this great question is possi- 
ble. 

OUR DUXV, 

Our duty, therefore, is plain, ^^'e 
must keep the republican p^arty in pu\v- 
er at AVashingtou. We must hold our 
majority in the House of Representa- 
tives. We must let no guilty demo- 
cratic candidate escape. 

But with that we must let our Sena- 
tors and Representatives understand 
tuimistakably that there must be no- 
more trifling with the trust question; 
tliat they must take hold of it without 
delay and deal with it with all the wis- 
dom at their command. To accomplisli 
this effectively each one of us must do 
something; not merely listen to what 
some one else says, but say somethin,:^- 
himself. We can do it. Suppose every re- 
publican editor in the- state would say 
something about it once a week, arid 
every republican spealver mention it 
once in each .speech, and every republi- 
can voter write one letter about it to 
some one of our Representatives or 
Senators in Congress. Just this, if he 
can think of no more: "Dear Sir: — Do 
something about the trusts. Yours 
truly." Washington would be astonish- 
ed at the Pentecostal tire that Avould 
possess the Indiana delegation. We ar-i 
the sovereigns. Let us for once assert 
our prerogative. We have uiore power 
than the trusts if we will only use it. 

My brethren — not fellow citizens now> 
but brethren — brethren in the felicity 
of thinking alike concerning the things 
of the republic — brethren in an inherit- 
ance of glory in the achievements of 
our party — I speak to you as one look- 
ing backward on many years of earnest 
political activity, and forward to few. 
It is not all of party success to win the 
tight — to stay in power. There are, iu 
every party, as in every man, forces 
that pull downward. It is the forces 
that lift upward that make the party 
great. The individual men of the party 
are those forces. Let us lift, lift, lift — 
every man in his place. 



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